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INTRODUCTION 


Tue nature of man can be regarded from many points 
of view, and upon it much has been written, without 
being in any way exhaustive. Itis probably true that all 
subdivision and classification is ultimately only a con- 
cession to finite intelligence, but one of the simplest 
modes of dealing with human nature is to think of it as 
divided into two regions—the region of the soul with its 
continuity of transcendental existence, and the region 
of the body with its physical and terrestrial ancestry. 
Likewise, concerning the nature of Christ, volumes have 
been written; and the same kind of simplifying treat- 
ment has been found useful here also. It can be re- 
garded from the eternal and Divine point of view, being 
thought of as the Logos which existed before all worlds, 
and as such can be worked into an elaborate ideal- 
istic philosophy, with weighty and beneficent results; 
or it can be considered from the human point of view, 
and dealt with as belonging to a being born upon this 
planet, subject to the difficulties attendant upon partial 
knowledge and growing powers, and living a life as 
troubled and as strenuous as any other of the sons of 
men. 

That something of this latter treatment is necessary, 
is obvious to a person of any lucidity who contem- 
plates the development of a human being from earliest 
infancy. 

Writers of all ages have emphasised one or other of 
these aspects, and they are both conspicuous in the New 
Testament itself. The one treatment is found especially 
in the fourth Gospel and in the Epistles of Paul, the 
other treatment chiefly in the other three Gospels. 

Emphasis on the humanity is no novelty, and is per- 

vil 


Vili Introduction 


fectly orthodox; and yet in some ages of the world 
it has seemed a novelty, and has occasionally struck 
devout persons as almost blasphemous. 

Forty years ago the majority of religious people were 
surprised and somewhat shocked when a book was 
written to recall them to a recognition of the thorough 
humanity of Christ. It appears that the generation 
of that day had let this aspect slide out of its field 
of view, its attention being focussed upon another. 
Consequently, when “‘ Ecce Homo” was published, it 
was received with a chorus of disapprobation, broken 
only by a few judicious utterances in its favour from 
leaders of thought: one of these—a notable article in 
“Good Words ”’ by Gladstone—having a great influence 
in making the book more widely known and better 
appreciated. 

Nowadays the pendulum has swung so far in the 
direction advocated by this book that it is difficult to 
realise the shock experienced when an historian set to 
work to deal with the life of Christ as he would deal with 
any other history, and to make an attempt to trace the 
career of the “‘ young man of promise,” spoken of in the 
originally anonymous and much-criticised brief preface, 
on the basis of the bare facts as deducible by historical 
methods from the documents themselves, without 
explicit attention to the mass of subsequent tradition 
and theoretic gloss which the Church had imevitably, 
and to a great extent rightly, superadded. 

The attempt thus made by Sir John Seeley was singu- 
larly able; and, being undertaken in a reverent and 
scholarly spirit, has achieved much towards the im- 
proved mode of thought on these subjects now pre- 
valent. The book was admittedly somewhat one- 
sided, but it was amply justified by the needs of the 
time. Nor is it at all out of date now. In the treat- 
ment of any great subject, vivid attention to one 
aspect at a time is all that average human beings are 
capable of; but he is a poor reasoner, or has a pitiful 
intellect, who is thereby blinded to the existence of 
other aspects equally worthy of attention in their turn. 


Introduction ix 


And whenever a generation has concentrated itself too 
exclusively on one side, it behoves some prophet or 
leader of thought to restore the balance by calling atten- 
tion to another; and to expound it forcibly, in spite of 
what, to his contemporaries, may seem a painfully in- 
adequate treatment of the side with which they were 
already familiar. 

The author was accused of dogmatism: but in reply 
explained that throughout he addressed free inquirers 
like himself; that his book was not one of authority, but 
one of inquiry and suggestion, intended not to close dis- 
cussion but to open it. He dealt with the matter as a 
lay historian rather than as a theologian; and the result 
is a very living picture. He collects a considerable 
body of illustrations both of Christ’s character and of 
the great Christian moral principle, ‘‘ the divine inspira- 
tion which makes virtue natural, active, tender, ele- 
vated, resentful, forgiving.” This he regards as the 
foundation of the Teachings. 

So also with regard to Christ’s acts. As an historian 
he considers that those which are in harmony with his 
character gain thereby in credibility, and that about 
many of them there is ‘‘ something beyond the ordinary 
reach, or beside the purpose, of invention.”’ Most of the 
record is justified and rendered probable, by consistency 
with character, when subjected to the ordinary historical 
tests and criteria. 


CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES 


Reading the book we must thankfully realise how great 
progress has now been made, at any rate in thought, 
towards a better understanding of genuine Christianity. 
Our acts and practical achievement still fall terribly 
short; but in thought there has been a distinct effort 
in many parts of Europe to throw overboard needless 
accumulations of tradition and return to the early and 
simple Teachings. 

It is remarkable that within such recent times it was 
possible to write as follows:— 


x Introduction 


“ The direct love of Christ, as it was felt by his first — 
followers, is a rare thing among modern Christians. — 
His character has been so much obscured by scholasti- 
cism as to have lost in a great measure its attractive 
power.” That can hardly be said so unreservedly now. 

The virtues especially insisted on by early Christianity 
were Love, Enthusiasm, and Faith: all lying in the 
region where intellectual ideas are fertilised by emotion, 
—the most actively motive-producing region of the mind. 

It is easy to misunderstand what is meant by “ faith,” 
sometimes wilfully to misunderstand it; but let no one 
suppose that to the educated and thoughtful man belief 
iseasy. A period of doubt and uncertainty must almost 
inevitably be gone through, and the problems presented 
require close study. 

The author fully admits the difficulties of Christian 
belief. ‘‘ We conclude,” he says, “that though it is 
always easy for thoughtless men to be orthodox, yet to 
grasp with any strong practical apprehension the theology 
of.Christ is a thing as hard as to practise his moral law.” 

Facile belief is of but little value: it often only means 
that as certain words make no impression whatever upon 
the mind, so they excite no opposition in it. There are 
few things which Christ would have visited with sterner 
censure than that short-cut to belief which consists of 
abandonment of mental effort. 

Yet faith is among the most important and expres- 
sive ideas in Christianity, and it is an essential condition 
for fellowship in the Kingdom. Properly understood, 
it is the attitude in which the most neglected and most 
ungifted of men may make a beginning. Even in half 
brutal countenances faith will light up a glimmer of 
nobleness. 

“The savage, who can do little else, can wonder and 
worship and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot 
know what is right can know that some one else knows; 
he who has no law may still have a master; he who is 
incapable of justice may be capable of fidelity; he who 
understands little may have his sins forgiven because 
he loves much.” 2 


Introduction ee 


Of all these virtues, it must be admitted, the average 
product of modern education is liable to be quite incap- 
able; unless he is something more than merely “ wise 
and prudent ”—and often he is less—he may thus be, in 
some respects, lower than the savage. 


SEVERITY 


Among the list of epithets applied to the Teachings, 
as quoted on page ix, occurs one which sounds a harsh 
note —the word “resentful.’’ But the author claims 
that Christ was far from being weak, effeminate, tolerant 
of hypocrisy and imposture, or even universally forgiving. 
His personal injurers he could and did forgive; but the 
obstruction of his kingdom, not through ignorance and 
weakness but in the strength of warped authority and 
self-satisfied bigotry, he strongly and to the end resented. 

“ Christianity is not quite the mild and gentle system 
it is sometimes represented to be. Christ was meek and 
lowly, but he was something beside. What was he 
when he faced the leading men among his countrymen 
and denounced them as a brood of vipers on their way 
to the infernal fires?’’ So says the author, and he 
continues: 

“The Enthusiasm of Humanity creates an intolerant 
anger against all who do wrong to human beings, an 
impatience of selfish enjoyment, a vindictive enmity to 
tyrants and oppressors, a bitterness against sophistry, 
superstition, self-complacent heartless speculation, an 
irreconcilable hostility to every form of imposture, such 
as the uninspired inhumane soul could never entertain.”’ 


PRACTICAL EFFORT 


The gospel is not all peace, it has a sword too. The 
Church as founded by Christ was not an insipid prelude 
to another world; it is an active and militant agent in 
this. 

“ As Christ habitually compared his Church to a state 
or kingdom, so there are traces that its analogy to an 
army was also present to his mind.” 


Xil Introduction 


It has to fight against evil as well as to promote good. 

“At the present day,” says the author, “ the Church 
fails most in that which its Founder valued most— 
originality ; it falls into that vice which he most earnestly 
denounced—insipidity.”” He believes the root of all evil 
in the Church to be ‘‘ the imagination that it exists for 
any other purpose than to foster virtue, or can be 
prosperous except so far as it does this.” 

Nor is the modern reformer likely to forget that to 
give people a fair chance of virtue and happiness in this 
world their surroundings must be such as not to subject 
their character to too hopeless a strain, and that it is 
part of the Church’s duty to endeavour with all its might 
to carry out the meaning and spirit of the Divine petition 
which, among those who acquiesce in the submergence 
of children in our slums and criminal haunts, is too 
grievously ignored—Lead us not into temptation. 

Not the pulpit alone, but also the best part of literature 
and of the stage is emphasising this to-day. 

The practical doctrines of Christianity are all general, 
so that they are not limited in their application to a 
specific period but apply to all time. One of them is 
that to make the fruit of a tree good you must put the 
tree into a healthy state; that a man’s actions result 
from the state of his mind. If that is healthy they will 
be right; if not, they will be wrong; and to amend his 
acts effectually his disposition must be amended. Such - 
language, the author says, was new in the mouth of a 
legislator. Incidentally it may be remarked that this 
is also the teaching of a good deal of modern drama, 
and constitutes the key to some of its puzzles. 


SUMMARY 


Now to give a short summary of the principal con- 
tents of the book:— 

The first five chapters are a masterly synopsis of the 
position and early outlook of the Nazarene Prophet 
who felt that he had a Divine mission to found a Church 
for all time. 


Introduction Xili 


The prelude to and the anticipation of some such work, 
in the light of the religious state of the country in that 
age, are glanced at in the first chapter called ‘‘ The 
Baptist.”” Then comes an analysis of the period which 
followed close upon Christ’s Baptism, with its extra- 
ordinary soul-stirring episodes; the time when he spent 
weeks in solitude and passed through the strange ex- 
periences which we know as the Temptation. The inner 
meaning of these temptations has been made so familiar 
now, by innumerable sermons, that it is difficult to 
suppose that this rational and illuminating treatment 
of them was new forty years ago. I would not venture 
to assert that it was really new then, yet from the book 
it so appears; and if so, this treatment was a great con- 
tribution to the atmosphere of Christian thought. 

Then follow chapters on the idea of the Kingdom, on 
his conception of his own Royalty, and the striking 
means he took to enforce his claims and to exhibit his 
credentials,—which were not what the superficial reader 
may suppose them to have been. 

After this the Founding and the nature of the Chris- 
tian Society or Church is dealt with; and then the 
second part deals with the Laws of the new kingdom; 
the keynote of the whole being the meaning underlying 
the phrase “‘ Enthusiasm of Humanity.’’ And it may 
be explained that this much-emphasised and highly- 
valued concomitant of living Faith, namely Enthusiasm, 
is not a mere sound of doubtful significance but has a 
derivation (from Geos) which associates it directly with 
the perception and felt influence of God. It means uni- 
fication with the Divine, and is thus closely akin to the 
true idea of Atonement. 


TREATMENT OF MIRACLES 


There is one thing which, in fairness to the author, it is 
desirable to make clear. Few will accuse him of hetero- 
doxy now, but some will accuse him of over orthodoxy, 
by reason of his treatment of miracles. As an historian 
he finds it impossible to dissociate a certain amount of 


Xiv Introduction 


super-normal power from Christ—power which he became 
aware of and frequently used for purposes of benefi- 
cence and compassion, though he scrupulously refrained 
from using it for any other purpose,—never for a moment 
to benefit himself, even though he were starving; nor 
did he wish to use it in order to call attention to and 
enforce his mission. He evidently mistrusts the atti- 
tude of mind which can depend much upon external 
evidence of that kind. He will not give them a sign; 
and where candour does not pre-exist mighty works 
become impossible. No conversion is to be effected by 
main force: he always appealed to free volition. His 
credentials were not so much the super-normal power, 
as the discriminating use he made of that power. This 
scrupulous reticence, according to the author, impressed 
his immediate followers as the most superhuman thing 
about him, so far as his acts were concerned. 

The point of view thus indicated is an important 
feature in the book, though it is not a feature upon 
which it is considered safe to dwell at the present day. 
Some are now in favour of rejecting all miraculous 
narratives wholesale; others would accept the acts of 
healing, but would reject all others. Such a miracle as 
the feeding of five thousand, for instance—one of the 
most difficult to accept as it stands—is liable to be 
treated nowadays as if it had only a spiritual signifi- 
cance, was in fact only a parable and was understood by 
contemporaries as such and no more. The author does 
not go to this length, nor do I feel called upon to go to 
this length either. 

An easy way to truth is not to be found by rejecting 
wholesale, any more than by admitting wholesale. The 
risk of error lurks on both sides. It has been easy to 
believe uncritically in the past; it is easy to reject too 
readily in the present. Truth lies in a middle way, 
and it is our business to pick our steps carefully. 

I would, however, urge people to lay no particular 
stress on any one miracle, though they may fancy it to 
be fundamental and certain, for such a foundation is 
apt to prove a sandy one. These signs and wonders 


—— 


Introduction XV 


were never foundations, and were never meant to be 
foundations; the truth of the Christian religion cannot 
be dependent upon them. But they may be facts of 
nature for all that. And just at this epoch, when many 
things are being investigated, and when discoveries are 
being made in strange and unlooked for regions, it be- 
hoves the wise man to reserve his judgment; to decline 
to build, indeed, upon unproved phenomena, but also to 
hesitate to reject them as untrue. We are immensely 
far from understanding all the laws of nature. For only 
a few centuries, and under much discouragement, have 
a few members of the human race been investigating 
them; and already fresh chapters, fresh volumes, seem 
likely to be opening before us. Now is no time for dog- 
matic denial of anything, however remarkable, however 
weird. Nor is there need for loud-voiced assertion 
either. The truth concerning these things will appear 
in due time. That can be depended on. Meanwhile 
we can attentively wait. 

Listen to the historian as to the documentary evidence 
for these things—some of them will undoubtedly prove to 
be invention, for others the literary evidence may be good 
—and then keep your ears open to the men of science 
also, when in good time they have something to say on 
present-day occurrences not wholly unallied to what is 
asserted of the past, and on subjects which are receiving 
the strenuous and thoughtful attention of more and more 
among them. 

The truths of the universe are far greater, and the 
ultimate outlook wider, than has been thought possible 
even by the vagaries of undisciplined imagination; 
and, under the touch of a lofty spirit, detents spring 
open revealing secret chambers which to the majority, 
in their smug contentment, must be for ever closed. 


OLIVER LODGE. 
December 1907. 


xvi Bibliography 


The following is a list of the chief published works of 
John Robert Seeley:— 


David and Samuel, with other poems (under the pseudonym of 
John Robertson), 1859; Ecce Homo, 1865; Lectures and Essays, 
1870, with Preface by Lady Seeley, 1895; The First Book of Livy, 
with an Introduction, Historical Examination, and Notes, 1871; 
English Lessons for English People(in collaboration with Dr. Abbott), 
1871; The Life and Times of Stein: or Germany and Prussia in 
the Napoleonic Age, 1878; Natural Religion, 1882, 4th Edition, 
1895; The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures, 1883, 
1895; A Short History of Napoleon I. (expanded from an “article 
in the ‘‘ Encyclopedia Britannica ”), 1886; Goethe Reviewed after 
Sixty Years, 1894; The Growth of British Policy: An Historical 
Essay, 1895; Lectures on Political Science, 1895; Introduction to 
Political Science: Two Series of Lectures, ed. H. Sidgwick, 1896; 
Ethics and Religion (address delivered before the Ethical iety 
at Cambridge), 1900. 

He was also Editor of the Student’s Guide to the University of 
Cambridge, 1863, etc. 

ee by Professor Prothero, prefixed to ‘‘ The Growth of British 
Policy.” 


XVI. 
XVII. 
XVIII. 
XIX. 
XX. 
XXI. 
XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 


CONTENTS 


FIRST PART 


. THe Baptist 

. THE TEMPTATION 

. THE Kinepom or Gop 

. CHRIST’S ROYALTY . : : 4 f 

. Curist’s CREDENTIALS 

. Curist’s WINNOWING Fan . a : 

. CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP IN CnrRisT’s KINGDOM 


Baptism 


. REFLECTIONS ON THE NATURE OF CHRIST’S SOCIETY 


SECOND PART 


CHRIST’S LEGISLATION 


. Curist’s LEGISLATION COMPARED WITH PHILOSOPHIC 


SysTEMS 


. THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC . : 5 
. UNIVERSALITY OF THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC 
. THE CHRISTIAN A Law To HIMSELF 

. THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY 

. THE Lorp’s SUPPER . 


PositTivE MorALity 

THe Law oF PHILANTHROPY 

THe Law or EDIFICATION . 

Tue Law or MERcy . 

Tue Law oF Mercy (continued) 

THe Law or RESENTMENT 

Ture LAw oF ForGivenrEss . 
Tue Law oF ForGIvENESS (continued) 


CONCLUSION : 
xVl 


86 
96 
102 
Ir4 
125 


144 
152 
162 
181 
194 
207 
225 
241 
252 





ECCE HOMO Y7 
FIRST PART 


CHAPTER I 
THE BAPTIST 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH sprang from a movement which 
was not begun by Christ. When he appeared upon the 
scene the first wave of this movement had already passed 
over the surface of the Jewish nation. He found their 
hearts recently stirred by thoughts and hopes which 
prepared them to listen to his words. It is indeed true 
that not Judza only but the whole Roman Empire was 
in a condition singularly favourable to the reception of a 
doctrine and an organisation such as that of the Christian 
Church. The drama of ancient society had been played 
out; the ancient city life, with the traditions and morality 
belonging to it, was obsolete; a vast empire, built upon 
the ruins of so many nationalities and upon the disgrace 
of so many national gods, demanded new usages and new 
objects of worship; a vast peace, where war between 
neighbouring cities had been the accustomed condition of 
life and the only recognised teacher of virtue, called for a 
new morality. There was a clear stage, as it afterwards 
appeared, for a Universal Church. But Palestine was 
not only ready to receive such an innovation, but pre- 
pared, even before the predestined Founder appeared, to 
make more or less abortive essays towards it. At the 
moment of his almost unobserved entrance, the whole 
nation were intent upon the career of one who was attempt- 
ing in an imperfect manner that which Christ afterwards 
fully accomplished. 

It was the glory of John the Baptist to have success- 

A 


2 Ecce Homo 


fully revived the function of the prophet. For several 
centuries the function had remained in abeyance. It had 
become a remote, though it was still a fondly-cherished, 
tradition that there had been a time when the nation had 
received guidance from commissioned representatives of 
its invisible King. We possess still the utterances of 
many of these prophets, and when we consider the age in 
which they were delivered, we can clearly perceive that 
no more precious treasure was ever bestowed upon a nation 
than these oracles of God which were committed to the 
Jews. They unite in what was then the most effective 
way all that is highest in poetry and most fundamental in 
political science with what is most practical in philosophy 
and most inspiring in religion. But prophecy was one of 
those gifts which, like poetry or high art, are particularly 
apt to die out under change of times. Several centuries 
had succeeded each other which were all alike incapable 
of producing it. When John the Baptist appeared, not 
the oldest man in Palestine could remember to have 
spoken even in his earliest childhood with any man who 
had seen a prophet. The ancient scrolls remained, as 
amongst ourselves those Gothic cathedrals remain, of 
which we may produce more or less faithful imitations, 
but to the number of which we shall never add another. 
In these circumstances it was an occurrence of the first 
magnitude, more important far than war or revolution, 
when a new prophet actually appeared. John the Bap- 
tist defied all the opposition of those scribes, who in the 
long silence of the prophetic inspiration had become the 
teachers of the nation, and who resisted him with the con- 
servatism of lawyers united to the bigotry of priests. He 
made his way back to the hidden fountains; and received 
at last that national acknowledgment which silenced even 
these professional jealousies, that irresistible voice of the 
people in which the Jew was accustomed to hear the voice 
of God. Armed with the prophetic authority, he under- 
took a singular enterprise, of which probably most of 
those who witnessed it died without suspecting the im- 
portance, but which we can see to have been the founda- 
tion of the Universal Church. 


The Baptist 3 


There may have been many who listened with awe to 
his prophetic summons, and presented themselves as can- 
didates for his baptism in implicit faith that the ordinance 
was divine, who nevertheless in after years asked them- 
selves what purpose it had served. It was a solemn 
scene doubtless, when crowds from every part of Palestine 
gathered by the side of Jordan, and there renewed, as 
it were, the covenant made between their ancestor and 
Jehovah. It seemed the beginning of a new age, the 
restoration of the ancient theocracy, the final close of 
that dismal period in which the race had lost its pecu- 
liarity, had taken a varnish of Greek manners, and had 
contributed nothing but a few dull chapters of profane 
history, filled with the usual chaos of faction fights, 
usurpations, royal crimes, and outbreaks, blind and brave, 
of patriotism and the love of liberty. But many of those 

who witnessed the scene and shared in the enthusiasm 
which it awakened must have remembered it in later days 
as having inspired hopes which had not been realised. 
Tt must have seemed to many that the theocracy had not 
in fact been restored, that the old routine had been inter- 
rupted only for a moment, that the baptised nation had 
speedily contracted new pollution, and that no deliverance 
had been wrought from the “ wrath to come.” And they 
may have asked in doubt, Is God so little parsimonious of 
His noblest gift, as to waste upon a doomed generation 
that which He did not vouchsafe to many nobler genera- 
tions that had preceded them, and to send a second and 
far greater Elijah to prophesy in vain? 

But if there were such persons, they were ignorant of 
one important fact. John the Baptist was like the Em- 
peror Nerva. In his career it was given him to do two 
things—to inaugurate a new régime, and also to nominate 
a successor who was far greater than himself. And by this 
successor his work was taken up, developed, completed, 
and made permanent; so that, however John may have 
seemed to his own generation to have lived in vain, and 
those scenes on the banks of Jordan to have been the de- 
lusive promise of a future that was never to be, at the dis- 
tance of near two thousand years he appears not less but 


: 
: 


4 Ecce Homo 


far greater than he appeared to his contemporaries, and 
all that his baptism promised to do appears utterly insig- 
nificant compared with what it has actually done. 

The Baptist addressed all who came to him in the same 
stern tone of authority. Young and old gathered round 
him, and among them must have been many whom he had 
known in earlier life, and some to whom he had been 
taught to look up to with humility and respect. But in his 
capacity of prophet he made no distinction. All alike he 
exhorted to repentance; all alike he found courage to 
baptise. In a single case, however, his confidence failed 
him. There appeared among the candidates a young 
man of nearly his own age, who was related to his family. 
We must suppose that he had had personal intercourse 
with Christ before; for though one of our authorities re- 
presents John as saying that he knew him not except by 
the supernatural sign that pointed him out at his baptism, 
yet we must interpret this as meaning only that he did 
not before know him for his successor. For it appears 
that before the appearance of the sign John had addressed 
Christ with expressions of reverence, and had declared 
himself unfit to baptise him. After this meeting we are 
told that on several occasions he pointed out Christ as the 
hope of the nation, as destined to develop the work he 
himself had begun into something far more memorable, 
and as so greatly superior to himself, that, to repeat his 
emphatic words, he was not worthy to untie his shoe. 

Now, before we enter into an examination of Christ’s 
own public career, it will be interesting to consider what 
definite qualities this contemporary and sagacious observer 
remarked in him, and exactly what he expected him to 
do. The Baptist’s opinion of Christ’s character then is 
summed up for us in the title he gave him—the Lamb of 
God taking away the sins of the world. There seems to 
be in the last part of this description an allusion to the 
usages of the Jewish sacrificial system, and in order to 
explain it fully it would be necessary to anticipate much 
that will come more conveniently later in this treatise. 
But when we remember that the Baptist’s mind was 
doubtless full of imagery drawn from the Old Testament, 


The Baptist 5 


and that the conception of a lamb of God makes the sub- 
ject of one of the most striking of the Psalms, we shall 
perceive what he meant to convey by this phrase. The 
Psalmist describes himself as one of Jehovah’s flock, safe 
under His care, absolved from all anxieties by the sense of 
His protection, and gaining from this confidence of safety 
the leisure to enjoy without satiety all the simple pleasures 
which make up life, the freshness of the meadow, the 
coolness of the stream. It is the most complete picture 
of happiness that ever was or can be drawn. It repre- 
sents that state of mind for which all alike sigh, and the 
want of which makes life a failure to most; it represents 
that Heaven which is everywhere if we could but enter it, 
and yet almost nowhere because so few of us can. The 
two or three who win it may be called victors in life’s 
conflict; to them belongs the regnum et diadema tutum. 
They may pass obscure lives in humble dwellings, or like 
Fra Angelico in a narrow monastic cell, but they are 
vexed with no flap of unclean wings about the ceiling. 
From some such humble dwelling Christ came to receive 
the prophet’s baptism. The Baptist was no lamb of God. 
He was a wrestler with life, one to whom peace of mind 
does not come easily, but only after a long struggle. 
His restlessness had driven him into the desert, where he 
had contended for years with thoughts he could not 
master, and from whence he had uttered his startling 
alarum to the nation. He was among the dogs rather 
than among the lambs of the Shepherd. He recognised 
the superiority of him whose confidence had never been 
disturbed, whose steadfast peace no agitations of life had 
ever ruffled. He did obeisance to the royalty of inward 
happiness. 

One who was to earn the name of Saviour of mankind 
had need of this gift more than of any other. He who 
was to reconcile God and man needed to be first at peace 
himself. The door of heaven, so to speak, can be opened 
only from within. Such then was the impression of 
Christ’s character which the Baptist formed. What now 
did he expect him to do? 

He said that Christ bore a fan in his hand, with which 


6 Ecce Homo 


he would winnow the nation, gathering the good around 


him, separating and rejecting the bad. We shall find 
occasion soon to speak of this more particularly; at 
present let us remark that it shows us what course the 
Baptist imagined that the movement he had commenced 
would take. He had renewed the old theocratic covenant 
with the nation. But not all the nation was fit to remain 
in such a covenant. A sifting was necessary; from the 
approaching downfall of the Jewish nationality, from the 
wrath to come, an election should be rescued who should 
perpetuate the covenant. It is superfluous to remark 
how just this anticipation was, and how precisely it de- 
scribes Christ’s work, which consisted in collecting all the 
better spirits of the nation, and bringing them under that 


revised covenant which we call Christianity, and which” 


survived and diffused itself after the fall of the Temple. 
Further, Christ was to baptise with a holy spirit and 

with fire. John felt his own baptism to have something 

cold and negative about it. It was a renouncing of. de- 


finite bad practices. The soldier bound himself to refrain | 


from violence, the tax-gatherer from extortion. But 


more than this was wanting. It was necessary that 


an enthusiasm should be kindled. The phrase “ baptise 
with fire” seems at first sight to contain a mixture of 
metaphors. Baptism means cleansing, and fire means 
warmth. How can warmth cleanse? The answer is that 
moral warmth does cleanse. No heart is pure that is 
not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. 
And such an enthusiastic virtue Christ was to introduce. 
The whole of the present volume will be a comment on 
this text. 


CHAPTER II 
THE TEMPTATION 


Let us delay a few more moments on the threshold of 
our subject, while we consider an incident which is said 
to have occurred just before Christ entered upon the 
work of his life. 

Signs miraculous or considered miraculous are said to 
have attested the greatness of Christ’s mission at the 
moment of his baptism. There settled on his head a dove, 
in which the Baptist saw a visible incarnation of that 
Holy Spirit with which he declared that Christ should 
baptise. A sound was heard in the sky which was inter- 
preted as the voice of God Himself, acknowledging His 
beloved Son. In the agitation of mind caused by his 
baptism, by the Baptist’s designation of him as the 
future prophet, and by these signs, Christ retired into the 
wilderness; and there in solitude, and after a mental 
struggle such as John perhaps had undergone before he 
appeared as the prophet of the nation, matured that plan 
of action which we see him executing with the firmest 
assurance and consistency from the moment of his return 
to society. A particular account, also involving some 
miraculous circumstances, of the temptations with which 
he contended successfully in the wilderness, is given in 
our biographies. 

Miracles are, in themselves, extremely improbable 
things, and cannot be admitted unless supported by a 
great concurrence of evidence. For some of the Evan- 
gelical miracles there is a concurrence of evidence which, 
when fairly considered, is very great indeed; for example, 
for the Resurrection, for the appearance of Christ to St. 
Paul, for the general fact that Christ was a miraculous 
healer of disease. The evidence by which these facts 


7 


8 Ecce Homo 


are supported cannot be tolerably accounted for by 
any hypothesis except that of their being true. And if 
they are once admitted, the antecedent improbability of 
many miracles less strongly attested is much diminished. 
Nevertheless nothing is more natural than that exaggera- 
tions and even inventions should be mixed in our bio- 
graphies with genuine facts. Now the miracles of the 
baptism are not among those which are attested by 
strong external evidence. There is nothing necessarily 
miraculous in the appearance of the dove, and a peal 
of thunder might be shaped into intelligible words by 
the excited imagination of men accustomed to consider 
thunder as the voice of God. Of the incidents of the 
temptation it is to be remarked that they are not de- 
scribed to us by eye-witnesses; they may have been com- 
municated to his followers by Christ himself, the best of 
witnesses, but we have no positive assurance that they 
were so communicated. 

On the other hand, a retirement of Christ into the 
desert, and a remarkable mental struggle at the beginning 
of his career, are incidents extremely probable in them- 
selves; and the account of the temptation, from whatever 
source derived, has a very striking internal consistency, 
a certain inimitable probability of improbability, if the 
expression may be allowed. That popular imagination 
which gives birth to rumours and then believes them, is 
not generally capable of great or sublime or well-sustained 
efforts. 


Wunderthatige Bilder sind meist nur schlechte Gemalde. 


The popular imagination is fertile and tenacious, but 
not very powerful or profound. Christ in the wilderness 
was a subject upon which the imagination would very 
readily work, but at the same time far too great a sub- 
ject for it to work upon successfully; we should expect 
strange stories to be told of his adventures in such a 
solitude, but we should also expect the stories to be very 
childish. Now the story of Christ’s temptation is as 
unique as Christ’s character. It is such a temptation as 
was never experienced by anyone else, yet just such a 


The Temptation 9 


temptation as Christ, and Christ in those peculiar circum- 
stances, might be expected to experience. And further, 
this appropriateness of all the circumstances hardly seems 
to be perceived by the Evangelists themselves who 
narrate them. Their narrative is not like a poem, though 
it affords the materials for a poem; it is rather a dry 
chronicle. 

Let us consider the situation. We are to fix in our 
minds Christ’s peculiar character, as it has been gathered 
from the Baptist’s description of him. His character then 
was such that he was compared to a lamb, a lamb of 
God. He was without ambition, and he had a pee 
unrivalled simplicity of devout confidence in God. Such 
is the person to whom it is now announced by a great 
prophet that he has been called to a most peculiar, a 
pre-eminent career. But this does not fully describe the 
situation; a most important circumstance has yet to be 
mentioned. From the time of his temptation Christ 
appeared as a worker of miracles. We are expressly 
told by St. John that he had wrought none before, but 
all our authorities concur in representing him as possessing 
and using the gift after this time. We are to conceive 
him therefore as becoming now for the first time con- 
scious of miraculous powers. Now none of our bio- 
graphies point this out, and yet it is visibly the key to 
the whole narration. What is called Christ’s temptation 
is the excitement of his mind which was caused by the 
nascent consciousness of supernatural power. 

He finds himself in a barren region without food. The 
tumult of his mind has hitherto kept him unconscious of 
his bodily wants, but the overwhelming reaction of lassi- 
tude now comes on. And with the hunger comes the 
temptation, ‘“‘ Son of God, into whose service all natural 
forces have been given, command that these stones 
become bread.” The possession of special power, and 
nothing else, constitutes the temptation here; it is the 
greatest with which virtue can be assailed: By it the 
virtuous man is removed from ordinary rules, from the 
safe course which has been marked by the footsteps of 
countless good men before him, and has to make, as it 


eRe Bie 


10 Ecce Homo 


were, a new morality for himself. In difficult circum-— 
stances few men can wield extraordinary power long 
without positively committing crime. But here we see the 
good man placed in a position utterly strange, deprived 
of the stay of all precedent or example, gifted with power 
not only extraordinary but supernatural and unlimited, 
and thrown for his morality entirely upon the instinct of 
virtue within him. Philosophers had imagined some such 
situation, and had presented it under the fable of the 
ring of Gyges, but with them the only question was 
whether distinctions of right and wrong would not vanish 
altogether in such circumstances. The question by which 
Christ’s mind was perplexed was far different; it was 
what newer and stricter obligations are involved in the 
possession of new powers. 

A strange, and yet, given the exceptional circumstances, 
a most natural and necessary temptation. Still more 
unique, and yet at the same time natural, is Christ’s 
resistance to it. Unique by its elevation, and natural. 
by its appropriateness to his character. He is awe- 
struck rather than elated by his new gifts; he declines 
to use for his own convenience what he regards as a 
sacred deposit committed to him for the good of others. 
In his extreme need he prefers to suffer rather than to 
help himself from resources which he conceives placed 
in his hands in trust for the kingdom of God. Did ever 
inventor or poet dare to picture to himself a self-denial ~ 
like this? But, on the other hand, what course could so 
exactly suit the character of Christ as the Baptist painted 
it? What answer could more exquisitely become the 
Lamb of God than that quotation—“ Man doth not live 
by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of 
the mouth of God”? Is it not substantially the same as 
that which the Psalmist uses in the very psalm in which 
he pictures himself as one of God’s lambs, “ He prepareth 
-for me a table in the wilderness ”’? 

Then follows a temptation, which again is extremely 
appropriate, because it is founded upon this very ¢on- 
fidence of Divinepratection. A new temptation arises 
by reaction out of the triumph of faith: “ Throw thyself 


The Temptation II 


down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge 
over thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up.’ 
To no other person but Christ could such a temptation 
occur; to him, we may boldly say, such a temptation 
must, at some time, have occurred. And if in the Son of 
God ‘there was filial reverence as well as filial confidence, 
it must have been resisted, as it is recorded to have been 
resisted, “‘ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” 

The third temptation is somewhat less easy to under- 
stand, but its appropriateness to the character and condi- 
tion of Christ, and its utter inappropriateness to every 
other character and condition, are quite as clear. A vision 
of universal monarchy rose before him. What suggested 
such thoughts to the son of a carpenter? What but the 
same new sense of supernatural power which tempted 
him to turn stones into bread, and to throw himself into 
the arms of ministering angels? This, together with the 
Baptist’s predictions, and those Messianic predictions of 
the ancient prophets, on which we can imagine that he 
had been intensely brooding, might naturally suggest such 
an imagination. He pictured himself enthroned in Jeru- 
salem as Messiah, and the gold of Arabia offered in tribute 
to him. But, says the narrative, the devil said to Him, 
If thou wilt fall down and worship me, all shall be thine. 
This, at least, it may be thought, was not a temptation 
likely to overcome the Lamb of God. One remarkable for 
simplicity of character, one who was struggling with the 
fresh conviction that he was himself that Messiah, that 
beloved Son of God, whose glorious reign wise men had 
been permitted to foresee from a distance of centuries; 
was he, in the moment of his first enthusiasm, and fresh 
in the possession of sacred prerogatives of power, which 
he feared to use in self-defence even against famine, likely 
to do homage to a spirit of evil for that which he must 
have believed to be surely his by gift of God? We 
should remember that the report of these temptations, if 
trustworthy, must have come to us through Christ him- 
self, and that it may probably contain the facts mixed with 
his comments upon them. We are perhaps to understand 
that he was tempted to do something which on reflection 


12 Ecce Homo 
appeared to him equivalent to an act of homage to the evil 


spirit. What then could this be? It will explain much © 


that follows in Christ’s life, and render the whole story 
very complete and consistent, if we suppose that what he 
was tempted to do ign am erys Jn the establish: 
ment of his. Messianic On this hypothesis, the 

ird temptation arises from the same source as the others; 
the mental struggle is still caused by the question how to 
use the supernatural power. Nothing more natural than 
that it should occur to Christ that this power was ex- 
pressly given to him for the purpose of establishing, in 
defiance of all resistance, his everlasting kingdom. He 
must have heard from his instructors that the Messiah 
was to put all enemies under his feet, and to crush all 
opposition by irresistible God-given might. This certainly 
was the general expectation; this appeared legibly writ- 
ten in the prophetical books. And, in the sequel, it was 
because Christ refused to use his supernatural power in 
this way that his countrymen rejected him. It was not 
that they expected a king, and that he appeared only as 
a teacher; on the contrary, he systematically described 
himself as a king. The stumbling-block was this, that, 
professing to be a king, he declined to use the weapons 
of force and compulsion that belong to kings. And. as 
this caused so much surprise to his countrymen, it is 
natural that he should himself have undergone a struggle 
before he determined thus to run counter to the traditional 
theory of the Messiah and to all the prejudices of the 
nation. The tempter, we may suppose, approached him 
with the whisper, “ Gird thee with thy sword upon thy 
thigh; ride on, and thy right hand shall teach thee 
terrible things.” 

If this was the temptation, then again how character- 
istic of the Lamb of God was the resistance to it, and at 
the same time how incomparably great the self-restraint 
involved in that resistance! One who believes himself 
born for universal monarchy, and capable by his rule of 
giving happiness to the world, is entrusted with powers 
which seem to afford the ready means of attaining that 
supremacy. By the overwhelming force of visible miracle 


The Temptation 13 


it is possible for him to establish an absolute dominion, 
and to give to the race the laws which may make it 
happy. But he deliberately determines to adopt another 
course, to found his empire upon the consent and not the 
fears of mankind, to trust himself with his royal claims 
and his terrible purity and superiority defenceless among 
mankind, and, however bitterly their envy may persecute 
him, to use his supernatural powers only in doing them 
good. This he actually did, and evidently in pursuance 
of a fixed plan; he persevered in this course, although 
politically, so to speak, it was fatal to his position, and 
though it bewildered his most attached followers; but by 
doing so he raised himself to a throne on which he has 
been seated for nigh two thousand years, and gained an 
authority over men greater far than they have allowed 
to any legislator, greater than prophecy had ever attri- 
buted to the Messiah himself. 

As the time of his retirement in the wilderness was 
the season in which we may suppose the plan of his 
subsequent career was formed, and the only season in 
which he betrayed any hesitation or mental perplexity, 
it is natural to suppose that he formed this particular 
determination at this time; and, if so, the narrative gains 
completeness and consistency by the hypothesis that the 
act of homage to the evil spirit to which Christ was 
tempted, was the founding his Messianic kingdom upon 
force. 

Such then is the story of Christ’s temptation. It rests, 
indeed, on no very strong external evidence, and there 
may be exaggeration in its details; but in its substance 
it can scarcely be other than true—first, because it is 
so much stranger than fiction, and next because in its 
strangeness it is so nicely adapted to the character of 
Christ as we already know it, and still more as it will 
unfold itself to us in the course of this investigation. 


CHAPTER III 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD 


It is the object of the present treatise to exhibit Christ’s 
career in outline. No other career ever had so much 
unity; no other biography is so simple, or can so well 
afford to dispense with details. Men in general take up 
scheme after scheme, as circumstances suggest one or 
another, and therefore most biographies are compelled 
to pass from one subject to another, and to enter into a 
multitude of minute questions, to divide the life carefully 
into periods by chronological landmarks accurately de- 
termined, to trace the gradual development of character 
and ripening or change of opinions. But Christ formed one 
plan and executed it: no important change took place in 
his mode of thinking, speaking, or acting; at least the 
evidence before us does not enable us to trace any such 
change. It is possible, indeed, for students of his life 
to find details which they may occupy themselves with 
discussing; they may map out the chronology of it, and 
devise methods of harmonising the different accounts; but ; 
such details are of little importance compared with the 
one grand question, what was Christ’s plan, and throw 
scarcely any light upon that question. What was Christ’s 
plan, is the main question which will be investigated in 
the present treatise, and that vision of universal monarchy 
which we have just been considering affords an appropriate 
introduction to it. 

In discussing that vision we were obliged to anticipate. 
Let us now enquire, as a new question, what course Christ 
adopted when he mingled once more with his fellow- 
countrymen after his seclusion in the wilderness, and 
when he entered upon his public career? John’s message 
to the nation had been, as we have seen, “ The kingdom 

14 


" The Kingdom of God Nts 


of God is at hand.” Now this proclamation Christ took 
up from his lips and carried everywhere. For a while 
the two prophets worked simultaneously, though, as it 
seems, separately, and the preaching of the one was an 
echo of that of the other. Our first object, then, must 
be to ascertain what it was which they anticipated under 
the name of the kingdom of God. And to ascertain this 
we should not look onward to that which actually took 
place, but placing ourselves in imagination among their 
audience, consider what meaning a Jew would be likely 
to attach to the proclamation they delivered. The con-, 
ception of a kingdom of God was no new one, but familiar 


to every Jew. Every Jew looked back to the time when . 


Jehovah was regarded as the King of Israel. The title 
had belonged to Jehovah in a very peculiar sense; it had 
not been transferred to Him from the visible earthly king 
as in many other countries, but appropriated to Him so 
exclusively that for a long time no human king had been 
appointed, and that when at last the people demanded 
to be ruled by kings like the nations around them, the 
demand was treated by the most ardent worshippers of 
Jehovah as high treason against Him. And though a 
dynasty was actually founded, yet the belief in the true 
royalty of Jehovah was not destroyed or weakened, only 
modified by the change. Every nation of originality has 
its favourite principles, its political intuitions, to which it 
clings with fondness. One nation admires free speech and 
liberty, another the equality of all citizens; just in the 
‘same manner the Jews attached themselves to the principle 
of the Sovereignty of God, and believed the happiness 
of the nation to depend upon its free acknowledgment 
of this principle. But in the time of. Christ all true 
Jews were depressed with the feeling that the theocracy 
was in a great degree a thing of the past, that they were 
jn anew age with new things about them, that Greek and 
Roman principles and ways of thinking were in the ascen- 
dant, and that the face of the Invisible King no longer 
shone full upon them. This feeling had become so deep 
and habitual, that at a much earlier time the sect of the 
Pharisees had been formed to preserve the peculiarity of 


16 Ecce Homo 


the nation from the inroad of foreign thought, and what- 
ever ancient Jewish feeling remained had gathered itself 
into this sect as into a last citadel. In these circumstances 
the cry, “‘ The kingdom of God is at hand,” could not be 
mistaken. It meant that the theocracy was to be restored, 
that the nation was called to commence a new era by fall- 
ing back upon its first principles. 

In making this proclamation John and Christ did not 
assume any new character. They revived the obsolete 
function of the prophet, and did for their generation what 
a Samuel and an Elijah had done for theirs. As every 
great nation has its favourite political principles, so it has 
its peculiar type of statesmen. The nation which strives 
after individual liberty produces statesmen whose prin- 
cipal qualities are personal independence, moral courage, 
and a certain skill in quarrelling by rule. The pursuit of 
equality produces men of commanding will, who are able 
to crush aristocratical insolence, and by ruling the country 
themselves to prevent the citizens from tyrannising over 
each other. In like manner the peculiar political genius 
of the Jews produced a peculiar type of statesman. The 
man who rose to eminence in that commonwealth was 
the man who had a stronger sense than others of the 
presence, power, and justice of the Invisible King, and his 
great function was to awaken the same sense in others by 
eloquent words and decided acts. The Jewish statesman 
was the prophet, and his business was to redeliver to each 
successive generation, in the language likely to prove most 
convincing and persuasive to it, a proclamation of which 
the meaning always was, “‘ The kingdom of God is at hand.” 
The occasion of such proclamation might be peculiar and 
determine it to a peculiar form, but one general descrip- 
tion of the Jewish prophet will apply to all of them, 
including John and Christ — viz. that he is one-who, 
foreseeing the approach of great national calamities and 
attributing them to the nation’s disloyalty to their Invisible 
King, devotes himself to the task of averting them by a 
reformation of manners and an emphatic republication, 
of the Mosaic Law. All the Jewish prophets answer this 
description, whether the calamity they foresee be a plague 


The Kingdom of God 17 


of locusts, an Assyrian invasion, a Babylonish captivity, 
or a Roman conquest with the abomination of desolation 
standing in the holy place. 

So far all prophets must of necessity resemble each 
other, but there are other matters in which it is equally 
necessary that they should differ. All prophets proclaim 
one eternal principle, and so far are alike; but as it is their 
duty to apply the principle to the special conditions of 
their age, they must needs differ as much as those con- 
ditions differ. As the prophet whose prophecy is new in 
substance is no prophet but a deceiver, so the prophet 
whose prophecy is old in form is no prophet but a pla- 
giarist. And thus if the revived theocracy of Christ had 
been simply and merely the theocracy of Moses or David, 
his countrymen would have had as good a right to deny 
his prophetic mission as if he had preached no theocracy 
at all. To express the same thing in the language of our 
own time, the destinies of a nation cannot be safely trusted 
to a politician who does not recognise the difference be- 
tween the present and the past, and who hopes to restore 
the precise institutions under which the nation had pros- 
pered centuries before. It is therefore most important to 
enquire under what form Christ proposed to revive the 
theocracy. 

We have remarked that the ancient theocracy had 
passed through two principal stages. In the first the 
sense of Jehovah’s sovereignty had been so absorbing 
that it had been thought impious to give the name of 
king to any human being. It is true that in this stage 
the notion of a human representative of Jehovah had been 
familiar to the nation. In their dangers and difficulties, 
when the sighs of the people were heard in heaven, the 
hand of Jehovah had seemed to them as mighty, and His 
arm as visibly outstretched, when He sent rescue through 
a legislator or judge in whom His wisdom dwelt, as when 
He divided the sea by immediate power. God’s presence in 
men had been recognised as fully as His presence in nature. 
“When the people come to me to enquire of God,” isa 
phrase used by Moses. But it had been held impossible 
to predict beforehand in what man God’s presence would 

B 


4 


18 Ecce Homo 


manifest itself. The divine inspiration which made a man ' 
capable of ruling had been considered to resemble that 
which made a man a prophet, or makes in these days a 
poet or inspired artist. And it was thought that to gives 
a man the title of a king for life, and to transfer it r 

larly to his descendants without demanding proofs that 
the divine wisdom remained and descended with equal 
regularity, was equivalent to depriving Jehovah of His 
power of choosing His own ministers. 

For a long time, therefore, a system of hero-worship 
prevailed. Whenever the need of a central government 
was strongly felt, it was committed to the man who ap- 
peared ablest and wisest. At length, however, the wish 
of the people for a government that might be permanent, 
that might hold definite prerogatives and be transferred 
according to a fixed rule, grew clamorous. Prophecy 
protested solemnly, but at last yielded, and an hereditary 
monarchy was founded. From this time forward until 
the Babylonish captivity Judza was under the govern- 
ment of Jehovah represented by a king of the house of 
David. This new constitution had all the advantages 
which we know to attach to hereditary monarchy. The 
nation gained from it a tranquillity and security which 
were not interrupted, as before, at the death of each ruler, 
and the national pride and patriotism were fostered by 
the splendour and antiquity of its royal house. But the 
spirit of prophecy, which had at first protested against 
the change, continued to be somewhat perplexed by the 
new institution. The king, it reasoned, if he was not then 
a usurper of Jehovah’s right, what was he? Could the 
country have two kings, and could loyalty to the one 
be reconciled with loyalty to the other? From this 
perplexity it found an escape by picturing the earthly 
king as standing in a peculiar relation to the heavenly. 
If the inspired hero or legislator of early times had been a 
favoured servant of Jehovah, the king must needs be 
more. He who, not on some special occasion but always, 
represented Jehovah, he who reflected not only His wisdom 
or justice but His very majesty and royalty in the pre- 
sence of His subjects, the assessor of Jehovah’s throne, 


| 


: The Kingdom of God 19 


the man that was the fellow of the Lord of Hosts, de- 
served to be called not His servant but His Son. But 
the more the dignity of a Jewish king appeared unutter- 
able, the more unworthy of it did almost every individual 
king appear. The ancient judge had been all that he pro- 
fessed to be. His special endowment might be of a mean 
order, but it was undeniable. No one questioned the 
stoutness of Samson’s sinews. But the king, of whom so 
much more was expected, might happen and did some- 
times happen to have much less. The spirit of prophecy 
consoled itself for these failures by painting upon the 
future such a king as might satisfy all the conditions its 
enthusiasm demanded, and might deserve to sit by Jeho- 
vah’s right hand and judge the chosen people. 

These were the two forms which the ancient theocracy 
had assumed. Now under which form did Christ propose 
to revive it? The vision of universal monarchy which 
he saw in the desert suggests the answer. He conceived 
the theocracy restored as it had been in the time of David, 
with a visible monarch at its head, and that monarch 
himself. 

We are concerned at present simply with the fact that 
Christ laid claim to the royal title, and not with the ques- 
tion what special powers he claimed under that title. The 
fact itself cannot be denied without rejecting all the evi- 
dence before us. His biographers regard him as king by 
hereditary right, and attach great importance to the 
proofs of his lineal descent from David. It does not 
appear, and it is not easy to believe, that he shared this 
feeling. But if not, it was because he believed his 
royalty to rest on a higher right. He could not derive 
honour from David because he held himself far greater 
than David. He was not king by a title derived from his 
ancestor, but by the same title as his ancestor. David 
had owed his sovereignty to that heroic will and wisdom 
in which the prophet Samuel had recognised a divine 
right to rule. The same title had Christ in a yet higher 
degree, and it had been recognised and proclaimed with 
equal solemnity by the greatest prophetic authority of the 
age. The prophetic designation which had fallen upon 


20 Ecce Homo 


him had perhaps revealed to himself for the first time his 
own royal qualities, and the mental struggles which fol- 
lowed, if they had led him to a peculiar view of the kind 
of sovereignty to which he was destined, had left upon 
his mind a most absolute and serene conviction of his 
royal rights. During his whole public life he is distin- 
guished from the other prominent characters of Jewish 
history by his unbounded personal pretensions. He calls 
' himself habitually king and master, he claims expressly 
the character of that divine Messiah for which the ancient 
prophets had directed the nation to look. 

So far, then, it appears that Christ proposed to revive 
the theocracy in the form which it had worn in the age 
of David and Solomon. A hero-king was to represent to 
the nation their Jehovah, and to rule in the indefeasible 
right of natural superiority. But was the new monarchy 
to be a copy of the old? A thousand years had passed 
since the age of David. A new world had come into being. 
The cities through which Christ walked, the Jerusalem 
at which he kept the annual feasts, were filled with men 
compared with whom the contemporaries of David might 
be called barbarous—men whose characters had been 
moulded during many centuries by law, by trade and 
foreign intercourse, by wealth and art, by literature and 
prophecy. Was it possible that the old heroic monarchy 
could be revived in the midst of a complicated and in- 
tellectual civilisation? 

This difficulty does not seem to have occurred to 
Christ’s contemporaries. The religious Jews were looking 
for the appearance of one who should be neither more 
nor less than David had been. They expected, it seems, 
to see once more a>warrior-king, judging in the gate of 
Jerusalem, or surrounded by his mighty men, or carrying 
his victorious arms into the neighbouring countries, or 
receiving submissive embassies from Rome and Seleucia, 
and in the meantime holding awful communication with 
Jehovah, administering His law and singing His praise. 
It was natural enough that such vague fancies should fill 
the minds of ordinary men. It was as impossible for 
them to conceive the true Christ, to imagine what he 





The Kingdom of God 21 


would do or how he would do it, as it was impossible for 


them to fill his-place.” Meanwhile the Christ himself, 
meditating upon his mission in the desert, saw difficulties 
such as other men had no suspicion of. He saw that he 
must lead a life altogether different from that of David, 
_ that the pictures drawn by the prophets of an ideal 
_ Jewish king were coloured by the manners of the times 
_ in which they had lived; that those pictures bore indeed 
a certain resemblance to the truth, but that the work 
_ before him was far more complicated and more delicate 
than the wisest prophet had suspected. 

___ It was in this way that the quarrel began between the 
_ Jews and their divine Messiah. Their heads were full of 
the languid dreams of commentators, the impracticable 
_ pedantries of men who live in the past. He was grappling 
with the facts of his age in the strength of an inspiration 
to which no truth was hidden and no enterprise impossible. 
_ Accordingly he appeared before them, as it were, under 
_a disguise. He confounded their calculations, and pro- 
fessing to be the king they expected, he did none of the 
_ things which they expected the king to do. He revived 
the theocracy, and the monarchy, but in a form not only 
unlike the system of David but utterly new and unpre- 
cedented. 

It is not uncommon to describe the Jews as having 
simply made the mistake of confounding a figurative ex- 
pression with a literal one. It is said that when Christ 
called himself a king he was speaking figuratively, and 
that by “king ” he meant, as some say, God, as others, a 
wise man and teacher of morality, but that the Jews 
persisted in understanding the expression literally. Such 
interpreters do not see that they attribute to intelligent 
men a mistake worthy of children or savages. We do 
not find in history whole nations misled, bloody catas- 
trophes and revolutions produced, by verbal mistakes 
that could be explained in a moment. Again, they attri- 
bute to Christ. conduct which is quite unaccountable. A 
wise man may at times dilate upon the authority which 
_ his wisdom gives him, and in doing so may compare him- 
_ self toa king; but if he saw that his words were so grossly 


22 Ecce Homo 


misapprehended that he was in danger of involving him- — 


self and others in political difficulties, he would certainly 
withdraw or explain the metaphor. But it is evident 
that Christ clung firmly to the title, and attached great 
importance to it. This appears in the most signal manner 


_ on the occasion of his last entry into Jerusalem. He ~ 
entered in a public triumph preceded by those who hailed © 
him as son of David, and when requested by those who 


thought the populace guilty of this very misconception of 
mistaking a wise man for a king to silence their enthu- 
siastic cries, he pointedly refused. Again, it is clear that 
this assumption of royalty was the ground of his execu- 
tion. The inscription which was put upon His cross ran, 
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. He had himself pro- 
voked this accusation of rebellion against the Roman 
government; he must have known that the language he 
used would be interpreted so. Was there then nothing 
substantial in the royalty he claimed? Did he die for a 
metaphor? 

It will soon become necessary to consider at leisure in 
what sense Christ understood His own royalty. At pre- 
sent it is enough to remark that, though he understood it 
in a very peculiar sense, and though he abdicated many 
of the functions of a sovereign, he yet regarded it as a 





royalty not less substantial, and far more dignified, than — 


that of his ancestor David. We may go one step farther 


before entering into the details, and note the exact ground ~ 


of the quarrel which the Jews had with him. He under- 
stood the work of the Messiah in one sense, and they in 
another, but what was the point of irreconcilable differ- 
ence? They laid information against him before the 
Roman government as a dangerous character; their real 
complaint against him was precisely this, that he was not 
. dangerous. <Pilate executed him on the ground that his 
kingdom was of this world;-the Jews procured his execu- 
tion precisely because it was not. In other words, they 
could not forgive him for claiming royalty and at the same 
time rejecting the use of physical force. His royal pre- 
tensions were not in themselves distasteful to them; 
backed by a military force, and favoured by success, 


The Kingdom of God 29 


those pretensions would have been enthusiastically re- 

ceived. His tranquil life, passed in teaching and healing 
the sick, could not in itself excite their hatred. An elo- 

_ quent teacher, gathering disciples round him in Jerusalem 
and offering a new and devout interpretation of the 
Mosaic law, might have aroused a little spite, but not the 

ery of “ Crucify him!” They did not object to the king, 
they did not object to the philosopher; but they objected 
to the king in the garb of the philosopher. They were 
offended at what they thought the degradation of their 
great ideal. A king who neither had not cared to have 
a court or an army; a king who could not enforce a com- 
mand; a king who preached and lectured like a scribe, 
yet in his weakness and insignificance could not forget 
his dignity, had his royal title often in his mouth, and 
lectured with an authority that no scribe assumed—these 
violent contrasts, this disappointment of their theories, 
this homely parody of their hopes, inspired them with an 
irritation, and at last a malignant disgust, which it is not 
hard to understand. 

That they were wrong we are all ready to admit. But 
what Christ really meant to do, and in what new form 
he proposed to revive the ancient monarchy, is not so 
clear as the error of his adversaries. It is this which we 
proceed to consider. 


CHAPTER IV 
CHRIST’S ROYALTY 


From the perplexity in which the Jews were involved by 
the contrast between Christ’s royal pretensions and the 
homely tenor of his life, they sometimes endeavoured to 
deliver themselves by applying practical tests. They 
laid matters before him of which it might seem the 
duty of a king to take cognisance. By this means they 
discovered that he considered several of the ordinary 
functions of a king not to lie within his province. For 
example, they showed him some of the tribute-money, 
and asked him whether they ought to pay it. It was 
an obvious but at the same time a very effective way of 
sifting his monarchical claims. In the times of David the 
Jews had imposed tribute on the surrounding nations; 
it was a thing scarcely conceivable that in the age of the 
Messiah they should _pay_tribute. to the foreigner. If 
Christ were a commissioned and worthy successor of the 
national hero, it seemed certain that he would be fired 
with indignation at the thought of so deep a national 
degradation. Strange to say, he appeared little interested 
in the question, and coldly bade them not be ashamed 
‘to pay back into Cesar’s treasury the coins that came 
from Czsar’s mint. If there be one function more than 
another which seems proper to a king, it is that of main- 
taining and asserting the independence of his realm; yet 
this function Christ peremptorily declined to undertake. 
The ancient kings of Judah had been judges. Accord- 
ingly the Jews invited Christ more than once to under- 
take the office.of a judge. We read of a civil action x 
concerning an inheritance which was submitted to hing; 
and of a criminal case of adultery in which he was asked 
to pronounce judgment. In both cases he declined the 
24 


| Christ’s Royalty i 25 


office, and in one of them with an express declaration 
that he had received no commission to exercise judicial 
functions. 

The ancient kings of Judah had commanded the armies 
of the nation. It has been already remarked that Christ 
refrained in the most decided manner from undertaking 
this function. He expressly told Pilate that his kingdom 
was one the members of which did not fight, and, con- 
sistently with this principle, he forbade his follower Peter 
to take up arms even in order to save him from arrest. 

What functions then did Christ undertake? We feel 
baffled at the beginning of our investigation, and can 
enter into the perplexity of the Jews, for those which 
we have enumerated are the principal functions of the 
ancient monarchy. All of them Christ declined, and yet 

continued to speak of himself as king, and that with such 
consistency and clearness that those who were nearest to 
his person understood him most literally, and quarrelled 
for places and dignities under him. Our perplexity 
arises from this: that whereas Christ announced the 
restoration of the Davidic monarchy, and presented him- 
self to the nation as their king, yet, when we compare 
the position he assumed with that of an ancient Jewish 
king, we fail to find any point of resemblance. 

But the truth is, as it appears after a little considera- 
tion, that in this rough comparison we have not sufficiently 
remembered the very peculiar view taken by the Jews— 
perhaps originally by other ancient nations—of royalty. 
It is possible, though it cannot be proved, that other 
nations, such as the Greeks, gave the name of king, in the 
first instance, to the god of the particular tribe, and after- 
wards transferred it to the human being who was supposed 
to be sprung from him, or beloved and inspired by him. 
But that among the Jews the notion of royalty was derived 
from that of divinity, seems clear. Human kings were 
appointed late in Palestine, but from a much earlier time 
the twelve tribes had lived under a monarchy. Their 
national Divinity had been their king. He had been 
believed to march at the head of their armies, and to 
bestow victory, to punish wrong-doing, and to heal differ- 


26 Ecce Homo 


ences when the tribes were at peace.” The human king 


a 


who was afterwards appointed was king but in a secondary © 


sense, as the deputy of the Invisible King, and the inspired 


depositary of His will. Now it is important to remark 


that the human king represented the Divine King in 
certain matters only, and not in others. In the habitual 
acts of administration the king officiated, but there were 
some acts which Jehovah had done for the nation once 
for all, in which, as they were not to be repeated, none 
of the house of David could represent Him. Yet these 
acts were far greater than those which were regularly 
repeated, and displayed much more magnificently the 
royalty of Jehovah, 

These acts were two—the calling of the nation, and the 
institution of its laws. 

It was believed, in the first place, that the nation 
owed its separate existence to Jehovah’s election of 
Abraham. The origin of other nations is lost in antiquity, 
but we can still trace the movements of the primitive 
shepherd who separated himself from his Chaldzan 
countrymen in obedience to an irresistible divine impulse, 
and lived a wandering life among his flocks and herds, 
ennobled by his unborn descendants as other men are by 
their dead ancestors, rich, as it were by a reversed in- 
heritance from the ages after him, and actually bearing 
in his body Moses and David and Christ. His life was 
passed in mysterious communion with the Sovereign Will 
which had isolated him in the present and given him for 
compensation a home in the future. 

This then was the first work which the Invisible King 
did for his subjects. He created the nation over which 
He was to reign. And the Jews in after times loved to 
speak of Him as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
the God, that is, who had watched over the growth of a 
family into a nation, who had sealed that family for 
Himself and chosen the nation. 

But this had been done once for all. The king of the 
house of David might represent to the people their In- 
visible King at the head of an army, or on the judgment- 
seat, but he could not represent to them the Founder of 


Christ’s Royalty 27 


their commonwealth, the God who had been, as it were, 
their dwelling-place in all generations. 

The covenant between Abraham and his invisible 
Guide had been simple. No condition but isolation and 
the sign of it, circumcision, had been imposed upon the 

first Hebrew; he received and obeyed occasional moni- 
tions, and he was blessed with a continually increasing 
prosperity. But the family grew into a nation, and then 
the covenant was enlarged. He who had called the 
nation now did for it the second work of a king and gave 
-italaw. No longer special commands imposed on special 
persons, but general laws binding on every Israelite at 
all times alike, laws regulating the behaviour of every 
Israelite towards his brother Israelite.and towards the 
Invisible King, laws which turned a wandering tribe of 
the desert into a nation worthy of the settled seat, the 
mountain fastness girdled with plain and cornfield and 
protected by Jordan and the sea, with which at the same 
time their Patron endowed them. In this work of legis- 
lation He was represented by Moses, of whom it therefore 
is written that “ he was ksmg in Jeshurun.” This too was 
a work done once for all. No king of the house of David 
ever represented the Invisible King in His capacity of 
legislator. To study the divine law diligently and ad- 
minister it faithfully was the highest praise to which a 
David or Hezekiah could aspire. 

Thus the kings of the house of David were representa- 
tives of the Invisible King in certain matters only. The 
greatest works which can be done for a nation by its 
shepherd were quite beyond their scope and province. 

__ We may now perceive how Christ might abdicate all 
the functions they had undertaken, and yet remain a king 
in a much higher sense than they, and in what respect 
the conception of the Messiah formed by the Jews of 
Christ’s time might differ from that which Christ himself 
formed of him. It was the fatal mistake of the most 
influential body in the nation, that mixed body which is 
called the Scribes and Pharisees, to regard the Mosaic 
law as final and unalterable. They fell into the besetting 
sin of lawyers in all ages. Assuming therefore that 





28 . Ecce Homo 


nothing remained for the Messiah to do in legislation, they 
were driven to suppose that he too, like the ancient kings, 
would be but an imperfect representative of the Supreme 
King. And so they were driven to conceive him as 
occupied with administration or conquest, and, had their 
dream been realised, the Christ would have appeared i in 
history far inferior to Moses. 

On the other hand, Christ fixed his thoughts solely on 
the greater and more fundamental works of a heroic 
royalty. He respected the Mosaic legislation not less 
than his contemporaries, but he deliberately proposed to 
himself to supersede it by a new one promulgated on his 
own authority. He undertook the part rather of a second 
Moses than of a second David, and though he declined | 
to take cognisance of special legal cases that were sub- 
mitted to him, we never find him refusing to deliver 
judgment upon a general point of law. But he went 
still deeper, and undertook a work yet more radical than 
that of Moses. Not only did he boldly announce that 
the work done on Sinai was to be done over again by 
himself, but even the earlier and primary work of the 
Invisible King done in Ur of the Chaldees, the Call which 
had brought the nation into existence, he declared him- 
self commissioned to repeat. In that proclamation, “ the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand,” we have hitherto seen only 
a restoration of the ancient theocracy, but a closer con- 
sideration will show us that the restoration was no mere 
resumption of the old system at the point at which it 
had been left off and in the original form, but a recom- 
mencement of the whole history from the beginning; not 
a revival of the old covenant but a new covenant, a new 
election, a new legislation, a new community. In the early 
time there came a voice to Abraham which said, “ Get 
thee out of thy kindred, and from thy country, and from 
thy father’s house, into a land of which I shall tell thee: 
and I will make of thee a great nation, and in thee shall 
all families of the earth be blessed.” And now there was 
heard throughout Palestine a voice proclaiming, “ There 
is no man that hath given up father, or mother, or house, 
or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, but he 


| Christ’s Royalty 29 


shall receive an hundredfold more in this present life, and 

in the world to come life everlasting.” The two calls 
Tesemble each other in sound; in substance and meaning 
‘they are exactly parallel. The object of both was to, 
create a new society which should stand in a peculiar 
Telation to God, and which should have a legislation 
different from and higher than that which springs up in 
secular states. And from both such a society sprang, 
from the first the ancient Jewish theocracy, from the 
second the Christian Church. 

It is not now so hard to understand Christ’s royal 
pretensions. He declined, it is true, to command armies, 
or preside in law courts, but higher works such as imply 
equal control over the wills of men, the very works for 
which the nation chiefly hymned their Jehovah, he under- 
took in His name to do. He undertook to be the Father 
of an everlasting state, and the Legislator of a world- 
wide society. 

But this is not yet all. Christ was more than a new 
Moses and a new Abraham. For completeness we must 
here touch on a mysterious subject, of which the full 
discussion must be reserved for another place. Since the 
time of the Mosaic legislation a revolution had happened 
in the minds of men, which, though it is little considered 


because it happened gradually, is surely the greatest , 


which the human mind has ever experienced. Man had 
in the interval come to consider or suspect himself to be 
tmmortal. It is surprising that the early Jews, in whom. 
the sense of God was so strong, and who were familiar 
with the conception of an Eternal Being, should yet have 
been behind rather than before other nations in suspect- 
ing the immortality of the soul. The Greek did not even 
in the earliest times believe death to be annihilation, 
though he thought it was fatal to all joy and vigour; but 
the early Jews, the Legislator himself and most of the 
Psalmists, limit their hopes and fears to the present life, 
and compare man to the beasts that perish. How strange 
a revolution of thought when the area of human hopes 
and fortunes suddenly extended itself without limit! 
Then first man must have felt himself great. Then first, 


30 Ecce Homo 


too, human relations gained a solidity and permanence 
which they had never before seemed to have; then- the 
great and wise of a remote past started into life again; 
then the remote future moved nearer and became vivid like 
the present. This revolution had in a great measure taken 
place before the time of Christ. The suspicion of immor- 
tality appears in the later prophets, that suspicion which ~ 
Christ himself was to develop into a glorious confidence. — 

This extension of the term of human life had a pro-— 
digious effect upon morality. We have spoken of Jeho-— 
vah as legislating for the Jews. But a law is nothing | 
unless it is enforced. Now in what way did Jehovah > 
enforce the law He had given? In the first place by 
commissioned judges appointed from the people and > 
inspired by Him with the necessary wisdom. But many 
crimes pass undetected by the judge, or his wisdom fails 
him and the wrong person is punished, or he takes a bribe 
and perverts justice. In these cases, then, what did 
Jehovah do? How did He enforce His law? Did He 
suffer the guilty man to escape, or had He other ministers 
of justice beside the judge and the king? It was sup- 
posed that in such cases He called in the powers of nature 
against the transgressor, destroyed his vines with hail- 
stones and his mulberry-trees with the frost, or aban- 
doned his flocks and herds to the Bedouins of the desert. 
But this theory was found to be unsatisfactory. Life is a 
short term. The transgressor has but to tide over a few 
years, and he is in the haven beside the just man, where 
the God of the living cannot touch him. And the Jew, 
watching the ways of Jehovah, could not but observe 
that this often happened. He was troubled to see over 
and over again prosperous villany carried to an honoured 
grave in the fullness of years and the satiety of en- 
joyment. Another conjecture was hazarded. It was 
said the bad man prospers sometimes, but he has no 
children, or at least his house soon dies out. Among 
Jews and Gentiles alike this theory found favour for a 
time— 

ovde Te puv waides rorl yotvacr wammafovew 
€AOdvt éx roAeuoio Kal aivns Snidrytos. 


Christ’s Royalty 31 


But again facts were too stubborn to be resisted, and the 
Psalmist is obliged to admit that here too the wicked 

_ prosper—“ They have children at their desire, and leave 
the rest of their substance to their babes.” 

In these circumstances morality must have preserved 
but a precarious existence. Good and evil were almost 
/on equal terms. The good man had sacrifices to make 
and trials to undergo, but little reward to expect. The 
bad man had the obvious gains of his villany, without 
any very serious danger of punishment. In these circum- 
stances, also, the Kingship of Jehovah Himself must have 

| wanted majesty. Profoundly as some Jews felt His great- 
ness, the common feeling towards Him must have been 
one of far less awe than that which we feel for the Al- 
: mighty God. For He seemed to have little power either 
| to help His friends or punish His enemies. Human life 
being essentially short, He could but lengthen or shorten 
: it a little. And the little power He had He seemed not 
to use. 
_ The Jehovah, therefore, whom Christ came to repre- 
sent, at a time when the immortality of the soul was a 
doctrine extensively received or favoured, was practically 
_a much more powerful and awful King than He who had 
spoken by Moses, and His relation to His subjects was 
far more intimate. In the earlier time He had enforced 
His law mainly through the civil magistrate; His other 
judgments were exceptional and rare. But now the 
office of the civil magistrate retreated into the back- 
ground, and Jehovah was conceived rather as holding 
His assize in that mysterious region which had recently 
become visible to men on the other side of death, as a 
: distant land becomes visible on the other side of a river 
: or strait,—the region which a Jew might compare to the 
Holy Land itself, the residence of Jehovah, parted from 
the desert and the unconsecrated earth by the stream of 
| Jordan. 

When Christ, therefore, declined the office of civil 

judge, it does not follow that he declined all judicial 
functions. Of the judgments of Jehovah we see that 
those pronounced by the magistrate formed now but a 





32 Ecce Homo 


small part. And in declining these he took all the others, 


the diviner judgments, into his own hand. We cannot 
here delay upon this subject, but the fact appears upon 
the surface of our biographies that Christ, however care- 
fully abstaining from the function of the civil magistrate, 
was yet continually engaged in passing judgment upon 


men. Some he assured of the forgiveness of their sins, 


upon others he pronounced a severe sentence. But in all 
cases he did so in a style which plainly showed, so as 
sometimes to startle by its boldness those who heard, that 
he considered the ultimate and highest decision upon 
men’s deeds, that decision to which all the unjustly con- 
demned at human tribunals appeal, and which weighs 
not the deed only, but motives, and temptations, and 
ignorances, and all the complex conditions of the deed— 
that he considered, in short, heaven and hell to be in his 
hand. 

We conclude, then, that Christ in describing himself 
as a king, and at the same time as king of the Kingdom 
of God—in other words, as a king representing the 
Majesty of the Invisible King of a theocracy—claimed the 
character first of Founder, next of Legislator, thirdly, in 
a certain high and peculiar sense, of Judge, of a new 
divine society. 

’ 


+ 





CHAPTER V 


CHRIST’ S CREDENTIALS 
 nceahcniiibied 
In defining as above the Posten which Christ assumed, 
we have not entered into controvertible matter. We 
have not rested upon single passages, nor drawn upon the 
fourth Gospel. To deny that Christ did undertake to 
found and to legislate for a new theocratic society, and 
that he did claim the office of Judge of mankind, is 


_ indeed possible, but only to those who altogether deny 


the credibility of the extant biographies of Christ. If 
those biographies be admitted to be generally trust- 
worthy, then Christ undertook to be what we have de- 
scribed; if not, then of course this, but also every other, 
account of him falls to the ground. 

When we contemplate this scheme as a whole, and 
glance at the execution and results of it, three things 
strike us with astonishment. First, its prodigious origin- 

ality, if the expression may be used. What other man 
has had the courage or elevation of mind to say, “I will 
build up a state by the mere force of my will, without 
help from the kings of the world, without taking advan- 
tage of any of the secondary causes which unite men 
together—unity of interest or speech, or blood-relation- 
ship. I will make laws for my state which shall never be 
repealed, and I will defy all the powers of destruction 
that are at work in the world to destroy what I build ”? 

Secondly, we are astonished at the calm confidence with 
which the scheme was carried out. The reason why 
statesmen can seldom work on this vast scale is that it 
commonly requires a whole lifetime to gain that ascend- 


 ency over their fellow-men which such schemes presup- 
_ pose. Some of the leading organisers of the world have 
_ said, “I will work my way to supreme power, and then I 


33 Cc 


34 Ecce Homo 


will execute great plans.” But Christ overleaped the first 
stage altogether. He did not work his way to royalty, 
but simply said to all men, “ Iam yourking.” He did not 
struggle forward to a position in which he could found a 
new state, but simply founded it. 

Thirdly, we are astonished at the prodigious success of 
the scheme. It is not more certain that Christ presented 
himself to men as the founder, legislator, and judge of a — 
divine society than it is certain that men have accepted j 
him in these characters, that the divine society has been 
founded, that it has lasted nearly two thousand years, that 
it has extended over a large and the most highly civilised 
portion of the earth’s surface, and that it continues full of 
vigour at the present day. 

Between the astonishing design and its astonishing suc- 
cess there intervenes an astonishing instrumentality—that 
of miracles. It will be thought by some that in asserting 
miracles to have been actually wrought by Christ we go 
beyond what the evidence, perhaps beyond what any 
possible evidence, is able to sustain. Waiving then for 
the present the question whether miracles were actually 
wrought, we may state a fact which is fully capable of 
being established by ordinary evidence, and which is ac- 
tually established by evidence as ample as any historical 
fact whatever—the fact, namely, that Christ professed to 
work miracles. We may go further, and assert with confi- 
dence that Christ was believed by his followers really to 
work miracles, and that it was mainly on this account that 
they conceded to him the pre-eminent dignity and autho- 
rity which he claimed. The accounts we have of these 
miracles may be exaggerated; it is possible that in some 
special cases stories have been related which have no 
foundation whatever; but, on the whole, miracles play so 
important a part in Christ’s scheme that any theory which 
would represent them as due entirely to the imagination 
of his followers or of a later age destroys the credibility 
of the documents not partially but wholly, and leaves 
Christ a personage as mythical as Hercules. Now the 
present treatise aims to show that the Christ of the 
Gospels is not mythical, by showing that the character 








Christ’s Credentials 35 


those biographies portray is in all its large features strik- 


_ ingly consistent, and at the same time so peculiar as to 


be altogether beyond the reach of invention both by in- 
dividual genius and still more by what is called the “ con- 


sciousness of anage.” Now if the character depicted in the 
_ Gospels is in the main real and historical, they must be 
_ generally trustworthy, and, if so, the responsibility of 
_ miracles is fixed on Christ. In this case the reality of 


the miracles themselves depends in a great degree on the 


_ opinion we form of Christ’s veracity, and this opinion must 


arise gradually from the careful examination of his whole 


_ life. For our present purpose, which is to investigate the 
_ plan which Christ formed and the way in which he exe- 


cuted it, it matters nothing whether the miracles were 


real or imaginary; in either case, being believed to be 


real, they had the same effect. Provisionally therefore 


| we may speak of them as real. 


Assuming then that Christ performed genuine miracles, 


| we have before us the explanation of the ascendency which 
_ he was able to exert. Yet it is important to consider in 


what precise manner men were affected by this super- 
natural power. By itself, supernatural power would not 
have procured for Christ the kind of ascendency he wanted, 
but exactly that ascendency which he so decidedly re- 
jected. We have seen him in the wilderness, as it ap- 
peared, declining an empire founded on compulsion; and, 
if this be conjectural, at least there is no doubt that it 
was by declining to use compulsion that he offended his 
countrymen. Nor can we have any doubt that, his ob- 
ject being what we have ascertained it to be, he was right 


in resting as little as possible upon force. A leader of 


armies, a tyrant, may want physical force and may de- 


_ sire the means of crushing opposition; but a wise legislator 


would desire that the citizens should receive his laws 


rather because they felt the value of them than from 


terror; and a judge, such as Christ professed to be, would 
prefer to influence the conscience and arouse the sense of 
shame rather than to work upon the fear of punishment. 
Supernatural power was not invariably connected in the 


_ minds of the ancients with God and goodness; it was 


36 Ecce Homo 
supposed to be in the gift of evil spirits as well as good; 


—— 


it was regarded with horror in as many cases as with rever- — 


ence. And, indeed, when wielded by Christ, the first 
impression which it produced upon those who witnessed 
it was one of alarm and distress. Men were not so much 
disposed to admire or adore as to escape precipitately from 
the presence of one so formidable. The Gadarenes prayed 
Christ to depart out of their coasts. Even Peter made 
the same petition, and that at a time when he knew too 
much of his Master utterly to misapprehend his character 
and purpose. 

It appears, then, that these supernatural powers freely 
used were calculated to hinder Christ’s plan almost as 
much as to further it. The sense of being in the hands 
of a Divine Teacher is in itself elevating and beneficial, 
but the close proximity of an overwhelming force crushes 
freedom and reason. Had Christ used supernatural power 
without restraint, as his countrymen seemed to expect of 
him and as ancient prophecy seemed to justify them in 
expecting, when it spoke of the Messiah ruling the nations 
with a rod of iron and breaking them in pieces like a 
potter’s vessel, we cannot imagine that any redemption 
would have been wrought for man. The power would 
have neutralised instead of seconding the wisdom and 
goodness which wielded it. So long as it was present it 
would have fettered and frozen the faculties of those on 
whom it worked, so that the legislation which it was used 
to introduce would have been placed on the same footing 
as the commands of a tyrant, and, on the other hand, as 
soon as it was removed, the legislation and it would have 
passed into oblivion together. 

We have anticipated in a former chapter the means 
by which Christ avoided this result. He imposed upon 
himself a strict restraint in the use of his supernatural 
powers. He adopted the principle that he was not sent 
to destroy men’s lives but to save them, and rigidly 
abstained in practice from inflicting any kind of damage 
or harm. In this course he persevered so steadily that 
it became generally understood. Every one knew that 
this king, whose royal pretensions were so prominent, had 


4 


Christ’s Credentials 37 


an absolutely unlimited patience, and that he would 
endure the keenest criticism, the bitterest and most 


_ malignant personal attacks. Men’s mouths were opened 


to discuss his claims and character with entire freedom; so 
far from regarding him with that excessive fear which 
might have prevented them from receiving his doctrine 


intelligently, they learnt gradually to treat him, even 


while they acknowledged his extraordinary power, with 


_a reckless animosity which they would have been afraid 
_ to show towards an ordinary enemy. With curious in- 


consistency they opcnly charged him with being leagued 
with the devil; in other words, they acknowledged that he 
was capable of boundless mischief, and yet they were so 
little afraid of him that they were ready to provoke him to 


use his whole power against themselves. The truth was, 


that they believed him to be disarmed by his own de- 
liberate resolution, and they judged rightly. He punished 


_ their malice only by verbal reproofs, and they gradually 


gathered courage to attack the life of one whose miracu- 
lous powers they did not question. 

Meantime, while this magnanimous self-restraint saved 
him from false friends and mercenary or servile flatterers, 
and saved the kingdom he founded from the corruption 
of self-interest and worldliness, it gave him a power over 
the good such as nothing else could have given. For the 
noblest and most amiable thing that can be seen is power 
mixed with gentleness, the reposing, self-restraining atti- 
tude of strength. These are “ the fine strains of honour,” 
these are “ the graces of the gods ”— 

To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o’ the air, 

And yet to charge the sulphur with a bolt 

That shall but rive an oak. 
And while he did no mischief under any provocation, his 
power flowed in acts of beneficence on every side. Men 


could approach near to him, could eat and drink with 


him, could listen to his talk, and ask him questions, and 
they found him not accessible only, but warm-hearted, 
and not occupied so much with his own plans that he 
could not attend to a case of distress or mental perplexity. 


‘They found him full of sympathy and appreciation, 


38 Ecce Homo 


dropping words of praise, ejaculations of admiration, tears. 
He surrounded himself with those who had tasted of his 


bounty, sick people whom he had cured, lepers whose — 


death-in-life, demoniacs whose hell-in-life, he had termin- 
ated with a single powerful word. Among these came 
loving hearts who thanked him for friends and relatives 
rescued for them out of the jaws of premature death, and 
others whom he had saved, by a power which did not 
seem different, from vice and degradation. 

This temperance in the use of supernatural power is 
the masterpiece of Christ. It is a moral miracle super- 
induced upon a physical one. This repose in greatness 
makes him surely the most sublime image ever offered 
to the human imagination. And it is precisely this trait 
which gave him his immense and immediate ascendency 
over men. If the question be put—Why was Christ so 
successful? Why did men gather round him at his call, 
form themselves into a new society according to his wish, 
and accept him with unbounded devotion as their legis- 
lator and judge? some will answer, “ Because of the 
miracles which attested his divine character”; others, 
“ Because of the intrinsic beauty and divinity of the great 
law of love which he propounded.” But miracles, as we 
have seen, have not by themselves this persuasive power. 
That a man possesses a strange power which I cannot 
understand is no reason why I should receive his words 
as divine oracles of truth. The powerful man is not of 
necessity also wise; his power may terrify, but not con- 
vince. On the other hand, the law of love, however 
divine, was but a precept. Undoubtedly it deserved that 
men should accept it for its intrinsic worth, but men are 
not commonly so eager to receive the words of wise men 
nor so unbounded in their gratitude to them. It was 
neither for his miracles nor for the beauty of his doctrine 
that Christ was worshipped. Nor was it for his winning 
personal character, nor for the persecutions he endured, 
nor for his martyrdom. It was for the inimitable unity 
which all these things made when taken together. In 
other words, it was for this, that he whose power and 
greatness as shown in his miracles were overwhelming 


—_ 





Christ’s Credentials 39 


denied himself the use of his power, treated it as a slight © 
thing, walked among men as though he were one of them, 
relieved them in distress, taught them to love each other, 
bore with undisturbed patience a perpetual hailstorm 
of calumny; and when his enemies grew fiercer, con- 
tinued still to endure their attacks in silence, until, 
petrified and bewildered with astonishment, men saw him 
arrested and put to death with torture, refusing steadfastly 
to use in his own behalf the power he conceived he held 
for the benefit of others. It was the combination of 
greatness and self-sacrifice which won their hearts, the 
mighty powers held under a mighty control, the unspeak- 
able condescension, the Cross of Christ. 

By this, and by nothing else, the enthusiasm of a Paul 
was kindled. The statement rests on no hypothesis or 
conjecture; his Epistles bear testimony to it throughout. 
The trait in Christ which filled his whole mind was his 
condescension. The charm of that condescension lay in 
its being voluntary. The cross of Christ, of which Paul 
so often speaks as the only thing he found worth glorying 
in, as that in comparison with which everything in the 
world was as dung, was the voluntary submission to death 
of one who had the power to escape death; this he says 
in express words. And what Paul constantly repeats in 
impassioned language, the other apostles echo. Christ’s 
voluntary surrender of power is their favourite subject, 
the humiliation implied in his whole life and crowned by 
his death. This sacrifice, which they regard as made for 
them, demands in their opinion to be requited by an 
absolute devotion on their part to Christ. Beyond con- 
troversy such was their feeling, and this feeling was the 
ground of that obedience to Christ and acceptance of his 
legislation which made the success of his scheme. If we 
suppose that Christ really performed no miracles, and 
that those which are attributed to him were the product 
of self-deception mixed in some proportion or other with 
imposture, then no doubt the faith of St. Paul and St. 
John was an empty chimera, a mere misconception; but 
it is none the less true that those apparent miracles 
were essential to Christ’s success, and that had he not 


4.0 Ecce Homo 


pretended to perform them, the Christian Church would 
never have been founded, and the name of Jesus of 
Nazareth would be known at this day only to the curious 
in Jewish antiquities. 

We have represented Christ’s abstinence from the use 
of his supernatural power as a device by which he avoided 
certain inconveniences which would have arisen from 
the free use of it. It is true that had he not practised 
this abstinence, his legislation could not have gained 
the worthy and intelligent acceptance it did gain; and 
by adopting this contrivance he triumphantly attained 
the object he proposed to himself. Still it was no mere 
measure of prudence or policy. Christ himself probably 
never thought of it as a contrivance or device; to him 
such self-restraint no doubt appeared simply required by 
duty, an essential part of fidelity to the commission he 
bore. And when we have investigated the character of - 
Christ’s legislation, we shall find that the great self-denial 
of his life, besides being a means of introducing his legisla- 
tion, was the greatest of all illustrations of the spirit of 
that legislation. The kind of life he prescribed to his 
followers he exemplified in his own person in the most 
striking way, by dedicating all his extraordinary powers 
to beneficent uses only, and deliberately placing himself 
for all purposes of hostility and self-defence on a level with 
the weakest. 

To sum up the results of this chapter. We began by 
remarking that an astonishing plan met with an astonish- 
ing success, and we raised the question to what instru- 
mentality that success was due. Christ announced him- 
self as the Founder and Legislator of a new Society, and 
as the Supreme Judge of men. Now by what means 
did he procure that these immense pretensions should be 
allowed? He might have done it by sheer power; he 
might have adopted persuasion, and pointed out the 
merits of the scheme and of the legislation he proposed 
to introduce. But he adopted a third plan, which had 
the effect not merely of securing obedience, but of exciting | 
enthusiasm and devotion. He laid men under animmense — 
obligation. He convinced them that he was a person of 


Christ’s Credentials iy 


altogether transcendent greatness, one who needed 
nothing at their hands, one whom it was impossible to 
benefit by conferring riches, or fame, or dominion upon him, 
and that, being so great, he had devoted himself of mere 
benevolence to their good. He showed them that for 
their sakes he lived a hard and laborious life, and ex- 
posed himself to the utmost malice of powerful men. 
They saw him hungry, though they believed him able 
to turn stones into bread; they saw his royal pretensions 
spurned, though they believed that he could in a moment 
take into his hand all the kingdoms of the world and the 
glory of them; they saw his life in danger; they saw him 
at last expire in agonies, though they believed that, had 
he so willed it, no danger could harm him, and that had he 
thrown himself from the topmost pinnacle of the temple 
he would have been softly received in the arms of minister- 
ing angels. Witnessing his sufferings, and convinced by 
the miracles they saw him work that they were voluntarily 
endured, men’s hearts were touched, and pity for weak- 
‘ness blending strangely with wondering admiration of 
unlimited power, an agitation of gratitude, sympathy, and 
astonishment, such as nothing else could ever excite, 
sprang up in them, and when, turning from his deeds to 
his words, they found this very self-denial which had guided 
his own life prescribed as the principle which should guide 
theirs, gratitude broke forth in joyful obedience, self- 
denial produced self-denial, and the Law and Law-Giver 
together were enshrined in their inmost hearts for in- 
separable veneration. 








CHAPTER VI 
CHRIST’S WINNOWING FAN 


THE first step in our investigation is now taken. We 
have considered the Christian Church in its idea, that is 
to say, as it existed in the mind of its founder and before 
it was realised. Our task will now become more historical 
and will deal with the actual establishment of the new 
Theocracy; but we shall endeavour to keep the idea 
always in view and sedulously to avoid all such details as 
may have the effect of obscuring it. 

The founder’s plan was simply this, to renew in a form 
adapted to the new time that divine Society of which 
the Old Testament contains the history. The essential 
features of that ancient Theocracy were: (1) the divine 
Call and Election of Abraham; (2) the divine legislation 
given to the nation through Moses; (3) the personal re- 
lation and responsibility of every individual member of 
the Theocracy to its invisible King. As the new Theo- 
cracy was to be the counterpart of the old, it was to be 
expected that these three features would be reflected in it. 
Accordingly we have found Christ undertaking to issue a 
Call to men such as was given to Abraham, to deliver 
a Legislation such as Israel had received from Moses, and 
to occupy a personal relation of Judge and Master to 
every man such as in the earlier Theocracy had been 
occupied by Jehovah Himself without representative. 

Such was the plan. In proceeding to consider the 
execution of it, these three essential features will afford 
the means of a convenient arrangement, and the corre- 
spondence of the new Theocracy to the old in respect of 
them will afford a constant instructive illustration. Our 
investigation divides itself from this point into three 
parts. We shall treat in order the Call, the Legislation, 

42 





) 





Christ’s Winnowing Fan 43 


and the Divine Royalty of Christ, and in proceeding now 


to consider the Call we shall ask the question, In what 


respect did the Call issued by Christ differ from that 
which came to Abraham? 


The Call then which the first Christians received differed 
from that received by Abraham, in the first place, in 
this respect, that it did not separate them from civil 
society. Abraham was commanded to isolate himself, 
abandoning his family and his native country. The life he 


_ adopted was one which was possible in his age and country. 


All external authority whatsoever he threw off; his 
actions were controlled by no power except that invisible 
one which had decreed his isolation. In his case the 
problem of the connection between Church and State 


_was solved in the most simple manner, namely, by the 
abolition of the State. There was but one Society, of 
which God was king, the patriarch being His deputy. 
| What intercourse he occasionally had with the world 


outside his own pastoral encampment was not like the 
intercourse of ene citizen with another, but consisted 
of formal negotiations or wars such as are transacted 
between states. Now the early Christians, it is true, 
compare themselves with Abraham in this respect. They 


call themselves strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, 
_ wanderers without a country for the present, but expect- 


ing one on the other side of death. Applied to them, 
however, these expressions are not literally true but meta- 


| phorical, and mean only that the secular states of which 


they were members did not excite their interest or their 
patriotism so strongly as the divine Society into which 
Christ had called them. All of them were members of 


some secular state as well as of the Christian Church; a 
complex system of obligations lay upon all of them already 


when the new Christian obligations were imposed, and 
_ their activity was confined by a multitude of prohibitions. 


In this respect the Christian commonwealth was not 


only unlike the camp of Abraham but unlike the ancient 


theocracy at every period of its history. For the political 
organisation of the Israelites sprang up, as it were, in 


the bosom of the ecclesiastical one, and was never re- 


44 Ecce Homo 


garded as distinct from it. The ancient Hebrew never 
regarded himself as living under two laws, one human 
and the other divine. To him all law alike was divine, — 
whether it punished theft or denounced death against 
idolatry. He believed both tables of the law to have 
been written with the finger of God. When he went 
before the civil tribunals it was “to enquire of God.” 
But the Christian regarded the civil power of his time 
as external altogether to the divine society, and though 
he might be ready to recognise it as in some sense a 
divine ordinance and as having a right to his obedience, 
yet on the other hand it knew nothing of that other 
commonwealth to which he professed to belong, had no 
respect for its laws, and would barely tolerate its existence. 
The divine Society had therefore to make its choice 
between declaring open war against the secular societies 
in the midst of which it was established, or refraining 
from all such acts as those societies would not allow. 
Following his principle of abstaining from force, Christ 
adopted the latter course. Now one principal thing no 
secular government would tolerate, namely, judicial 
tribunals and a penal administration independent of its 
own. We arrive therefore at the first distinguishing 
characteristic of the Society into which Christ called men. 
It was a Society whose rules were enforced by no punish- 
ments. The ancient Israelite who practised idolatry was 
stoned to death, but the Christian who sacrificed to the 
genius of Cesar could suffer nothing but exclusion from 
the Society, and this in times of persecution was in its 
immediate effects of the nature rather of a reward than of 
a punishment. At first it may seem that a society could 
exert no strong effect upon mankind which contained no 
power of compulsion or punishment. But we are to 
remember what was said above of the judicial power 
of Jehovah under the old theocracy. That judicial power 
was exerted through the civil law courts, it is true, but 
also in another way. Jehovah was considered as judging 
in heaven as well as in the law court, and as punishing 
by providential visitations and by mysterious pains in- 
flicted on the dead as well as by the hands of the execu- 


Christ’s Winnowing Fan 45 


_tioners of civil justice. Now in relinquishing the ordinary 
and administrative punishments, Christ retained for his 
Society the supernatural ones. And, so long as faith 

‘in the truth of his words continued lively among his 
followers, the state he founded was not distinguished 
among the states of the world by laxity of obedience in 

‘its members; rather have these supernatural terrors and 

hopes, intimately blended with other motives of which 

_a time will come to speak, excited in the Christian Church 

a more serious and enthusiastic loyalty than any secular 
commonwealth has known. 

__ We have learnt then thus much of the nature of Christ’s 
Call. When he went everywhere proclaiming the king- 
dom of God and summoning men to enrol themselves as 

members of it, he did not command them to abandon the 

national societies in which they were already enrolled. 

The Jew did not cease to be a Jew nor to yield obedience 

to Jewish and Roman authority, when he became a 

Christian; nor did he even cease to take an interest in 

‘national affairs. Particular Christians might do so and 

‘might merge all patriotic feelings in their devotion to the 

divine Society, but Christ himself never ceased to feel 

keenly as a patriot. What the Jew did on becoming a 

‘Christian was to enter into a new relation which was 

additional to those relations in which he stood already. 

Besides the authorities which he acknowledged before, 
he now acknowledged the authority of Christ; the law 
of Christ became binding upon him as well as the law of 
his country; and besides standing in awe of the civil 
judge and of the punishments he might inflict, he now 
stood in awe of Christ, whom he regarded as representing 
the supreme judicial majesty of Jehovah i in the invisible 
world. 

Such then was the nature of Christ’s Call. We go on to 
consider who were the objects of it. Here again the Call 
of Abraham suggests by contrast a peculiarity in that 
uttered by Christ. In the former case one man only was 
called, in the latter all men whatsoever. The earlier Call 
was rigidly exclusive, the latter infinitely comprehensive. 

This comprehensiveness may take us by surprise when 


46 Ecce Homo 


we consider the Baptist’s anticipations of Christ’s work. 
The baptism of John seems to have been absolutely com- 
prehensive; all those who came John accepted. But 
he said in reference to Christ, “‘ There stands one among 
you . . . whose fam is in his hand, and he will thor- 
oughly purge his floor, and gather ‘his wheat into the 
garner, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable 
fire.” It seems evident that the Baptist meant to warn 
those whom he had baptised without distinction or con- 
dition, that Christ’s work would be more thorough and 
searching than his, and that he would apply a test of 
some kind, by which the insincere would be detected and 
separated "from the good. It was the Baptist’s belief 
that a divine judgment was impending over the nation, 
and he seems to predict that Christ would make a selec- 
tion of the sounder members of the nation who would 
then be rescued from the catastrophe, while the others 
would be left to their fate. This prediction assuredly 
suggests to us a course of action different from that which 
Christ pursued. We do not at first sight discern the fan 
in his hand. We do not find him, as we might expect, 
discriminating the good from the bad, and honouring the 
former only with his call, but on the contragy we find 
him summoning all in the same words and with the same 
urgency. Nevertheless on a closer examination it will 
appear that Christ did perform this work of discrimina- 
tion, and that in a very remarkable manner, and that 
no expressions could be more strikingly just than those 
in which the Baptist described it. 

The difficulty of determining whether a man is or is 
not good has now become a commonplace of moralists 
and satirists. It is almost impossible to discover any test 
which is satisfactory, and the test which is actually ap- 
plied by society is known to be unsatisfactory in the ex- 
treme. The good man of society is simply the man who 
keeps to the prescribed routine of what is commonly con- 
sidered to be duty; the bad man he who deserts it. In 
order to arrive at this view men start from a proposition 
which is true, but they make the mistake of assuming the 
converse proposition to be true. It is true that the good 


: Christ’s Winnowing Fan 47 


an does good deeds, but it is not necessarily true that 
he who does good deeds is a good man. Selfish prudence 
dictates a virtuous course of action almost as imperatively 
as virtue itself; on the other hand, bad deeds may be 
caused by bad teaching, bad example or the pressure of 
necessity, not less than by a vicious disposition. And 
Christ showed throughout his life a remarkably strong 
conviction of this. He found society in Palestine in an 
especial degree wedded to the conventional standard. 
He found one class regarded with the most excessive 
reverence for their minute observance of proprieties, while 
chose who sinned fell under a pitiless excommunication. 
But the winnowings of this social fan did not satisfy him. 
He was persuaded that it winnowed away much that was 
valuable, and he occupied himself with rescuing the out- 
sasts who had been thus hastily rejected; much, on the 
other hand, which society stored up in its garner he vehe- 
nently pronounced to be chaff. What standard then did 
1e substitute in the place of this conventional one which 
1e repudiated? The society which he formed was re- 
ruited from all classes; no one was repelled on account 
of his past life; publicans and prostitutes were freely ad- 
nitted into it, and men of blameless lives and bred in 
-harisaic sanctity learned in Christ’s circle to hold inter- 
sourse with those whose company they would earlier have 
tvoided as contaminating. As we have seen, no one was 
xcluded who did but choose to enter. Christ compared 
umself to a king who kept open house and surrounded 
us dinner-table with beggars from the highway. And 
et in those who became members of the society, certain 
ommon qualities might be observed, and it will be gener- 
ly admitted that they formed on the whole the sounder 
mart of the nation. Doubtless there were traitors and 
mworthy members among them; Christ early remarked 
ind illustrated by a striking allegory the impossibility of 
erfectly sifting the seed sown in the Gospel-field. Doubt- 
ess, also, the fan in special cases winnowed out some 
vheat, and there remained to the end in the Pharisaic 
arty good men that were incurably mistaken. But on 
he whole a winnowing was accomplished; and almost 





48 Ecce Homo 


all the genuine worth and virtue of the nation 
gathered into the Christian Church; what remained wi 
out was perversity and prejudice, ignorance of the tim 
ignorance of the truth, that mass of fierce infatuati 
which was burnt up in the flames which consumed thi 
temple or shared the fall of the Antichrist Barcochebah. 

Some discriminating influence then was clearly at wor 
nor is it very difficult to discern its nature. Christ di 
not go out of his way to choose his followers; the 
itself sifted them; the Call itself was the fan he bore i 
his hand. For, though in form the same, it was in pra 
tical power very different from that Call which John 
issued. Both John and Christ proclaimed the advent of 
new divine Society, but John only proclaimed it as m 
while Christ exhibited it as present, and laid upon ce 
who desired to become members of it the practical obliga- 
tions and burdens which were involved in membershi 
To obey John’s call was easy, it involved nothing beyond 
submission to a ceremony; and when the prophet 
acquired a certain amount of credit, no doubt it became 
the fashion to receive baptism from him. This being so, 
he may well have felt that his work was but skin deep: 
his prophetic appeals to the conscience had created a 
mighty stir but no real conviction, no division betweer 
the good and bad, no national repentance. Idle people 
resorted to his preaching for a new sensation, frivolous 
people sought excitement in his baptism. With thal 
honest humility so characteristic of him he confessed, no 
precisely his failure, but the essentially imperfect. anc 
preliminary nature of his work. No Messiah, no prophe 
am I, he said. He said, I am a voice, a cry faintly hearc 
in the distance; I command nothing; I exact nothing 
I do but bid you be ready. 

But after Aaron the eloquent speaker, there came th 
new Moses, the Founder and Legislator. To listen to hin 
was no amusement for an idle hour; his preaching formes 
no convenient resort for light-minded people. His ton 
was not more serious than John’s, and it was somewha 
less vehement, but it was far more imperious and exacting 
John was contented with hearers; when he had delivere 










Christ’s Winnowing Fan 49 


_ those who had listened to subside into the easy tranquillity 
which his eloquence had disturbed while it lasted. But _ 
Christ demanded followers, recruits for the great work he 
‘had in hand, settlers for the new city that was to be 
founded, subjects for the king he announced himself to be. 
_ Those who listened to him must be prepared to change | 
all their prospects, and to adopt a new mode of life. The 
new mode of life was indeed not necessarily a hard one. 

Christ did not impose ascetic exercises upon his followers. 


his admonitions he relaxed his hold, and it was free to 


_ He was an indulgent master, and for a considerable time 
_ those who enrolled themselves in the new Theocracy had 
fo reason to dread any serious persecution from Jew or 
Roman. But he forewarned them that times would 
change in this respect, and in the meanwhile the devotion 
of a life to a new discipline, even though not a severe one, 
' demands at least a certain power of self-devotion which 

many do not possess; and Christ’s discipline was in fact 
harder to human nature than it seemed, for it demanded 
a certain moral originality and strenuousness of self-re- 
generation which men find in the long run more burden- 
some than the severest physical endurances and austeri- 
ties. Clearly, therefore, Christ’s Call imposed upon men 
the necessity of making a great resolution, of sacrificing a 
good deal. On the other hand, what did it offer? What 
equivalent could be expected by those who made the 
sacrifice? Perhaps those who gathered early about the 
Messiah might expect places and dignities in his kingdom, 
_to sit on thrones judging the tribes of Israel. This was . 
undoubtedly the current belief, and it may have led many 
to attach themselves to Christ from motives purely mer- 
cenary. But in a little time such adventurers must have 
‘remarked that in Christ’s language which would strike 
them with a sudden chill. They must have felt their 
hopes gliding away beneath their feet as they listened. 
The sacrifices they had made were unquestionable; many 
had left their homes and adopted a wandering life with 
their master; they had joined a suspected sect, they were 
partisans of an extreme movement, they had placed them- 
selves in opposition to the orthodoxy of the country. The 
. D 





P 


50 Ecce Homo 


risk they ran was certain, but the rewards they had ex- — 


pected in the coming kingdom of the Messiah were less — 


certain. It would seem to them that Christ explained” 


his promises away. The royalty which he professed to — 


bear himself was to vulgar apprehensions a mock royalty. 


\ 
i 


) 
: 


It had no substance of power or wealth; yet he continued ~ 


to call it royalty. They would soon begin to suspect that 
the subordinate dignities in the new kingdom were of the 
same insubstantial character. And many of them would 
hear with bitter disappointment, and some with furious 
hatred, exhortations to humility, to contentment with a 


lowly place, from the lips of him whom they had expected — 


to make their fortunes. In this way the interested and 
mercenary would fall off from him. The Call, which had 
acted as a test upon some directly by requiring from them 
an effort which they were not prepared to make, would 
winnow away others more gradually as soon as it was 
understood to offer no prospects which could tempt a 
worldly mind. 

In this way, without excluding any, Christ suffered the 
unworthy to exclude themselves. He kept them aloof by 
offering them nothing which they could find attractive. 
And all those who found Christ’s Call attractive were such 
as were worthy to receive it. Some made up their minds 
without hesitation. The worldly, the preoccupied turned 
away with peremptory contempt; a few of rare devotion 
closed with the Call at once. But the greater number 
were placed by it in a state of painful suspense and hesita- 
tion which lasted a long time. First, to understand dis- 
tinctly what it was which was proposed to them; next, 
to make up their minds as to the character of him who 
made such novel proposals, and advanced pretensions so 
unbounded; all this cost them much perplexity. But 
when so much was done, and they had decided favourably 
to the Prophet and his Theocracy, then came the greater 
difficulty, that of resolving to embark in an enterprise so 
unprecedented even at the beck of one whom they ac- 
knowledged to hold a divine commission. To break with 
prejudice and with convention, to enter upon a great and 
free life, is not done until some doubts have been mastered 


Christ’s Winnowing Fan 51 


and some coward hesitations silenced. In the midst of 
men who were in one stage or other of this mental con- 
flict, Christ moved. His words spread around him a per- 
petual ferment, an ever-seething effervescence. Anxious 
broodings, waxing or waning convictions, resolutions 


_ Slowly shaping themselves, a great travail of hearts, went 


on about him. An appeal had been made to what was 
noblest in each; each had been summoned to shake off 


routine and convention; some were gathering strength to 


accomplish the feat, some abandoning the attempt in 


despair. According to the issue of the conflict each 


man’s worthiness would appear. This then was the win- 
nowing which Christ did among men. The Call itself 
was in his hand as a fan. 

Of this effect produced by his words he was fully con- 
scious. He watched it with constant interest, and of his 
recorded sayings a large proportion are illustrative de- 
scriptions of the different effect of the Call upon different 
characters. At one time he described the ferment it pro- 
duced and its gradual diffusion through the community 
by comparing the kingdom of heaven to leaven which a 
woman hides in three measures of meal until the whole is 
leavened. At another time he compares the Call (the 
Word) to seed sown in different sorts of ground, but bear- 
ing a prosperous crop in one sort only. To one class he 
found it was like a treasure hidden in a field, which not 
to lose a man sells all his property and buys the field; to 
another class it is an invitation which they decline with 
civil excuses. Thus it shows each man in his genuine 
character, and, on the whole, those who accept the Call 
and abide by it are worthy of it. Yet to this rule there 
are a good many exceptions. When the seed has been 
sown in the best ground, tares will spring up with the 
wheat; thrown in, as it were, by some spiteful neighbour. 
And when the winnowing has thus failed through mishap, 
we must not interfere further, says Christ; he will have 
no artificial winnowing by mere presumptuous private 
judgment of each other. 

These are specimens of Christ’s reflections upon the 
working of his proclamation. They offer nothing which 


52 Ecce Homo 


need surprise us. Such a winnowing of men as he accom- 
plished is not unique in kind. Every high-minded leader 
who gathers followers round him for any great purpose, 


when he calls to self-sacrifice and has no worldly rewards 


to offer, does something similar. He too in his degree 


a 


winnows men. And therefore in tracing the history of © 


many other movements which have agitated large numbers, 
we are often reminded of those parables of Christ that 
begin, “The kingdom of heaven is like—.” If those 
parables are read together, they present an almost com- 
plete account of the ferment produced in a large and 
various society by a great principle presented to it im- 
pressively and practically. In all such cases each indi- 
vidual that comes within the influence may be said to 
pass an ordeal, and some characters come out from it 
vindicated that before were suspected to be worthless, and 
others are unmasked that had before imposed upon the 
world. But now what is the quality that carries a man 
through the ordeal? Can we find a name for it? It is, 
no doubt, neither more nor less than moral worth or good- 
ness; but this is no reason why a more precise name 
should not be given to this particular aspect of goodness. 
For, in fact, all the good qualities to which we give names, 
as justice, temperance, courage, etc., are not so much parts 
of goodness as aspects of it, and no man can have any one 
of them without having in a degree all the others. What 
then shall we call goodness when it shows itself conquering 
convention, and unselfishly ranging itself on the right side 
in those crises when good and evil are most visibly opposed 
to each other? 

The first Christians had manifestly occasion for such a 
word, and one came into use which may be said to have 
become a permanent addition to the moral vocabulary of 
the world. This word was faith. It was not altogether 
new; it might be found in the writings of the prophets; 
but it had never before seemed so important or so 
expressive of the essential worth of a man. When he 
rejected the test of correct conduct which society uses, 
Christ substituted the test of faith. It is to be under- 
stood that this is not strictly a Christian virtue; itis the 


: virtue required of one who wishes to become a Christian. 
_ So much a man must bring with him; without it he is 
_ not worthy of the kingdom of God. To those who lack 
faith Christ will not be Legislator or King. He does not, 
indeed, dismiss them, but he suffers them to abandon a 
_ society which soon ceases to have any attraction for them. 
_ Such, then, is the new test, and it will be found the only 
one which could answer Christ’s purpose of excluding 
all hollow disciples and including all, however rude and 
vicious, who were capable of better things. Every other 
good quality which we may wish to make the test of a 
man implies either too little or too much for this pur- 
ose. 
4 Justice is often but a form of pedantry, mercy mere 
easiness of temper, courage a mere firmness of physical 
constitution; but if these virtues are genuine, then they 
‘Indicate not goodness merely but goodness considerably 
developed. A man may be potentially just or merciful, 
yet from defect of training he may be actually neither. 
We want a test which shall admit all who have it in them 
to be good whether their good qualities be trained or no. 
Such a test is found in faith. He who, when goodness 
is impressively put before him, exhibits an instinctive 
loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts himself 
to it, such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is 
insuchaman. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal 
and faithful instinct in him will place him above many 
that practise virtue. He may be rude in thought and 
character, but he will unconsciously gravitate towards 
what is right. Other virtues can scarcely thrive without 
a fine natural organisation and a happy training. But 
the most neglected and ungifted of men may make a 
beginning with faith. Other virtues want civilisation, a 
certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in half- 
brutal countenances faith will light up a glimmer of 
nobleness. The savage, who can do little else, can 
wonder and worship and enthusiastically obey. He who 
cannot know what is right can know that some one else 
knows, he who has no law may still have a master, he who 
is incapable of justice may be capable of fidelity, he who 


Christ’s Winnowing Fan 53 


54 Ecce Homo 


understands little may have his sins forgiven because he 
loves much. 


” 
7 
’ 


Let us sum up the points of difference which we have 


discovered between the Old Theocracy and the New. The 
Old Theocracy was utterly independent of all political 
organisations. It was therefore able to create a political 
organisation of its own. The laws of the Theocracy were 
enforced by temporal punishments, as indeed at a time 
when the immortality of the soul was not recognised they 
could be enforced by no other. The NewTheocracy wasset 
up in the midst of a political organisation highly civilised 
andexacting. It wastherefore as completely devoid of any 
system of temporal punishments as the Old had been devoid 
of any other system. But, on the other hand, its members 
believed themselves to live under the eye of a Judge whose 
tribunal was in heaven and into whose hands they were 
to fall at death. Again, the Old Theocracy selected a 
single family out of the mass of mankind, while the New 
gathered out of mankind, by a summons which though 
absolutely comprehensive was yet not likely to be obeyed 
but by a certain class, all such as possessed any natural 
loyalty to goodness, enthusiasm enough to join a great 
cause, and devotion enough to sacrifice something to it. 





CHAPTER VII 
CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST'S KINGDOM 


_ THE question now arises, What was involved in obeying 
Christ’s summons? When the crowd of faithful and 
loyal hearts gathered round him, struck with admiration 
of the wisdom that was so condescending and the power 
that was so beneficent, when, without throwing off the 
yoke of citizenship in earthly states, they accepted the 
burdens of citizenship in the New Jerusalem, and without 
ceasing to be amenable to Jewish and Roman judges, 
became responsible for all their deeds and even for all 
_ their thoughts to Christ, what was the extent of the new 
obligation which they incurred? How did a Christian 
differ from another man? 

Ever since the Church was founded up to the present 
time this question, What makes a man a Christian? has 
been an all-important practical question. The answers 
given to it in the present day differ widely with the 
tolerance of those who give them, but they are generally 
the same in kind. They consist in specifying certain 
doctrines about God and Christ which a Christian must 
needs believe. One will say, He is no Christian who does 
not believe that the death of Christ effected a permanent 
change in the relations between man and God. Another 
will say, He is no Christian who does not believe in the 
Divinity of Christ. A third will say, It is necessary to 
believe in the Resurrection. Whether or no these beliefs, 
any or all of them, be necessary to the character of a 
Christian now, we may assert with absolute confidence 
that they were not required of the first followers of 
Christ, and further, that most of them had never occurred 
to their minds. Nothing could suggest to them the Re- 
surrection of Christ until he began darkly to prophesy of 


55 


56 Ecce Homo 


it to his most intimate disciples; and when he did so they — 
listened, we are told, with bewilderment and incredulity. | { 
So far from regarding the cross of Christ as the basis of a — 
reconciliation between God and man, they would navel I 
listened with horror to the suggestion that their Master — 
was destined to such a death. The Divinity of his person 
might indeed occur to some of those who witnessed his 
miraculous works, but it was certainly not generally 
received in the society, for we find Christ pronouncing a 
solemn blessing upon Peter for being the first to arrive at 
the conclusion that he was the Messiah. It appears, then, 
that so long as their Master was with them the creed of 
the first Christians was of the most unformed and ele- 
mentary character. To the ordinary belief of their age 
and country they added nothing except certain vague con- 
ceptions of the greatness of the new Prophet, whom the 
less advanced regarded as likely before long to establish 
a new royal dynasty at Jerusalem, while others of greater 
penetration regarded him as a new Moses and a divinely 
commissioned reformer of the law. It is clear, then, that 
those who consider an elaborate creed essential to the 
Christian character must pronounce Christ’s first disciples 
utterly unworthy to bear the name of Christians. But 
to this such persons may answer that the first disciples 
were indeed only Christians in a very imperfect sense, and 
that before the Resurrection it could not be otherwise. 
That event increased the number of dogmas which 
Christians are required to receive; before it happened 
their creed was necessarily meagre, but since it has hap- 
pened a Christian is not worthy of the name if he does not 
believe much more than any of Christ’s first followers. 
This view is plausible and agrees at first sight with the 
conclusions at which we have already arrived. Christ, 
we have said, announced himself as the Founder and 
Legislator of a new state, and summoned men before 
him in that capacity. He did not invite them as friends, 
nor even as pupils, but summoned them as subjects. It 
was natural that when they first gathered round him, 
and even for some time afterwards, they should differ 
from other men in nothing but the loyalty which had 





Membership in Christ’s Kingdom 57 
led them to obey the call. They understood that they 


_had been summoned in order to receive laws, but those 
' laws could not be promulgated all at once. In the mean- 


time, while they were expecting the institutions that had 
been promised to them, though Christians in will they 


‘could not be called Christians in the full sense of the 
-word. Though out of them the Christian Church was to 


spring, yet they might well be as unlike the Christian 
Church as the acorn is unlike the oak, or as the crew of 
the Mayflower was unlike the States of New England. 


But after the Church had received its Founder’s laws— 
laws which, like the Decalogue, contained not merely 


practical rules of life but declarations concerning the 


_ nature of God and man’s relation to Him, then Christianity 


may have begun to mean no mere fidelity or loyalty to 


-Christ’s person, but the practical obedience to his rules of 
life, and the unquestioning acceptance of his theological 


teaching. 
In a sense it is true that Christianity does mean this. 


Christ demanded as much and was assuredly not satisfied 


with less. In the same way every state demands of its 
citizens perfect patriotism and perfect obedience to the 
laws. Yet perfect patriotism and obedience is scarcely 
found in any citizen of any state; but the state, though 
it demands so much, does not exclude the citizen who 
renders less. It is one thing to be an imperfect citizen, 
and another to be excluded from citizenship altogether. 
In like manner it is one thing to be an imperfect Christian, 
and another to be utterly unworthy of the name. And 
it will be found on further examination that the Christian 
Church is content with a much more imperfect obedience 
to its law than any secular states. It does not, indeed, 


_ promulgate laws without expecting them to be observed; 


it constantly maintains a standard by which every 


Christian is to try himself; nevertheless whereas every 
secular state enacts and obtains from its members an 


almost perfect obedience to its laws, the laws of the 


Divine State are fully observed by scarcely any one, and 
the most that can be said even of Christians that rise 
decidedly above the average is that they do not forget 


58 Ecce Homo 


them, and that by slow degrees they arrive at a general! 
conformity with them. The reason of this will appear 
when we treat in detail of Christ’s legislation. It will 
then become clear that Christ’s legislation is of a nature 

infinitely more complex in its exactions upon every in- 
dividual than any secular code, and that accordingly a 

complete observance of it is infinitely difficult. For this 

reason it is a matter of universal consent among Christians 

that no man is to suffer exclusion from their society for 

any breach of Christ’s laws that is not of a flagrant and 

outrageous kind. Though it is common to hear a man 

pronounced no Christian for not believing in what is 

called the Atonement, yet no such excommunication is 

passed upon men in whom some very unchristian vices, 

such as selfishness or reckless party-spirit, are plainly 

visible. The reason of our tolerance in the latter case is 

that we all acknowledge the immense difficulty of over- 

coming a vice when it has become confirmed, and we 

charitably give the man who has visibly not overcome 

his vices credit at least for struggling against them. 

This is quite right; only we ought to be just as tolerant 
of an imperfect creed as we are of an imperfect practice. . 
Everything which can be urged in excuse for the latter 
may also be pleaded for the former. If the way to 
Christian action is beset by corrupt habits and mislead- 
ing passions, the path to Christian truth is overgrown with 
prejudices and strewn with fallen theories and rotting 
systems which hide it from our view. It is quite as hard 
to think rightly as it is to act rightly, or even to feel 
rightly. And as all allow that an error is a less culpable 
thing than a crime or a vicious passion, it is monstrous 
that it should be more severely punished; it is monstrous 
that Christ who was called the friend of publicans and 
sinners, should be represented as the pitiless enemy of 
bewildered seekers of truth. How could men have been 
guilty of such an inconsistency? By speaking of what 
they do not understand. Men, in general, do not under- 
stand or appreciate the difficulty of finding truth. All 
men must act, and therefore all men learn in some degree 
how difficult it is to act rightly. The consequence is that 


| 


_ Membership in Christ’s Kingdom 59 


all men can make excuse for those who fail to act rightly. 
But all men are not compelled to make an independent 
search for truth, and those who voluntarily undertake to 
do so are always few. They ought, indeed, to find pity 
and charity when they fail, for their undertaking is full 
of hazard, and in the course of it they are too apt to 
leave friends and companions behind them, and when 
they succeed they bring back glorious spoils for those 
who remained at home criticising them. But they cannot 
expect such charity, for the hazards and difficulties of 
the undertaking are known to themselves alone. To the 
world at large it seems quite‘easy to find truth and inex- 
cusable to miss it. And no wonder! For by finding 
truth they mean only learning by rote the maxims current 
around them. 

_ Present to an ordinary man the\ maxim, “ Love your 
enemies ”; you may hear him sigh as he answers that the 
saying is divine, but he fears he shall never practise it. 
The reason is that he has an enemy and fully understands 
what it is to love him, and also what it is to hate him. 
Present to the same man the saying, “The Word was 
made flesh,” and what will he answer? If he answered 
the truth he would say that he did not understand it; 
but he would not be quite an ordinary man if he could 
recognise his own ignorance so plainly. He will answer 
that he believes it, by which he means that as the words 
make no impression whatever upon his mind, so they 
excite no opposition in it. Present the same two texts to 
a thinker. It is not impossible that the first may seem 
to him no hard saying; he may have no enemies, or his 
thoughtful habits may have brought his passions under 
control. But the second will overwhelm him with diffi- 
culty. For he knows what it asserts; he may have been 
accustomed to regard the Adyos as the technicality of 
an extinct philosophy, and may be staggered to find it 
thus imported into history and made the groundwork of 
what aspires to be a permanent theology. It is at this 
point, then, that the thinker will sigh, and you will hear 
him murmur that it is a great saying, but he fears he 
shall never believe it. 


60 Ecce Homo ] 


Thus Christian belief is fully as hard a thing as Christian 
practice. It is intrinsically as hard, and those who do 
not perceive the difficulty of it understand it just so 
much less than those who do. Christ’s first followers, as 
we have seen, were far from possessing the full Christian 
belief. Not till long after his departure did they arrive 
at those conclusions which are now regarded as consti- 
tuting Christian theology. In their position, we have 
admitted, this was almost inevitable. The great events 
upon which that theology rests, had either not happened, 
or not been maturely considered. These difficulties have 
been removed; but have not other difficulties taken theiz 
place? Two may be mentioned which beset the modern 
enquirer into Christianity, and often make his theology 
as imperfect and confused as that of the crowd of disciples 
who gathered round Christ. 

yt To the first Christians the capital facts of Christ’s life 
were future and therefore obscure; to the moderns they 
gather an almost equal obscurity from being long past. 
The immensity of distance from which we contemplate 
them raises many obstacles to belief. Before the theology 
can be inferred from the facts they must be well authen- 
ticated. Those who witnessed them or talked with those 
who had witnessed them were relieved from all trouble 
on this head. But in these days many fail in the pre- 
liminary undertaking. Complicated questions of evi- 
dence perplex them: they are assailed with doubts of the 
possibility of transmitting from age to age a trustworthy 
account of any long series of incidents, especially a series 
including miracles. Suppose this difficulty surmounted, 
still the same remoteness of the life of Christ creates much 
difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of the words he 
used, and the exact nature of the doctrines he taught. 
For those words and those doctrines have been subjected 
to the ingenuity of many generations of commentators. 
Spoken originally to men of the ancient world, they have 
received a succession of medieval and modern glosses, 
and if we put these aside and study the text for ourselves, 
our own training, the education and habits of the nine- 
teenth century, disqualify us in a considerable degree for 


“4 


| Membership in Christ’s Kingdom 61 


entering into its meaning. Only a well-trained historical 
imagination, active and yet calm, is competent so to 
revive the circumstances of place and time in which 
the words were delivered as to draw from them, at a 
distance of eighteen hundred years, a meaning toler- 
ably like that which they conveyed to those who heard 
them. 

2. Christ’s first followers had a sympathy with him, 
and his mode of teaching had an adaptation to them, 
which arose from the fact of the Master and disciples being 
contemporaries and fellow-countrymen. It is common to 
say of political constitutions that they must grow and can- 
not be made. Now the constitution which Christ gave to 
mankind has been found capable of being transplanted 
into almost every soil, but, notwithstanding, it is native 
to Palestine, and must have been embraced by those to 
whom it was first given with an ease and readiness which 
the Western nations cannot emulate. Christ’s constitu- 
tion was not a new invention, but a crowning development 
of that which had existed in Palestine since the race of 
Israel had lived there. For centuries the Jews had been 
accustomed to receive truth by authoritative proclamation 
from the mouth of a prophet. How the truth came to the 
prophet he himself knew not; the only account he could 
give of the matter was that it was put into his mouth by 
the Invisible King of the Theocracy, and that he knew it to 
be truth. And those who listened put the proclamation 
to no rigid test. They watched the prophet to see if he 
were honest, and if his proclamation shook their hearts 
and stirred their blood and seemed to bring them into the 
presence of the Invisible King, they then felt sure of its 
truth and safe in following it. Now of these prophets 
Christ was distinctly one, the greatest of all. He had the 
same intuitive certainty, for which he gave no reason, yet 
which no one could attribute to mere self-confidence, the 
same tone of unbounded authority assumed in the name 
of God, the same power of subduing the heart and arousing 
the conscience. Therefore those who heard him found 
something familiar in his style. It reminded them of all 
that they were most accustomed to venerate, of Moses, 


ii 
Ds. 


62 Ecce Homo 


Isaiah, Ezra, and they seemed to fall into their natural 
places when they sat at his feet and treasured up his 
words as oracles of truth. | 

Now this mode of communicating and receiving truth 
is not indeed repugnant to the Western nations. From 
the time of Pythagoras and Heraclitus to the time of 
Carlyle and Mazzini, men have arisen at intervals in the 
West who have seemed to themselves to discover truth, 
not so much by a process of reasoning as by an intense 
gaze, and who have announced their conclusions in the 
voice of a herald, using the name of God and giving no 
reason. And in the Western world these men have 
always met with a certain acceptance; they have generally 
succeeded in gathering round them followers of respect- 
able character and understanding; and so fully is the 
possibility of such a prophetic discovery of truth recog- 
nised, that the Jewish prophets themselves have been 
received throughout the West with profound veneration. 
Still the respect for authority in knowledge is far less in 
the West than in the East. This is plain when we con- 
sider that the Jewish prophets seem to have been accepted 
by the whole nation, and that when thus accepted it 
was considered presumption to deny anything that 
they said. On the other hand, no one in the West ever 
reaches such an eminence as to have no detractors, 
and we are all bold enough to doubt what is said even by 
those whom we reverence most. The reason of this is 
that in the West a method has been laid down which places 
the gifted man and the ungifted in some degree on a 
level. It is still, no doubt, the gifted man in general who 
discovers truth, but when the discovery is made the 
ungifted man can test it and judge of it. Whereas it 
would appear that where the processes of thought have 
never been analysed and reduced to method, there is no 
means of discovering the error of a gifted man, except 
through the emphatic contradiction of one who has won 
the reputation of being more gifted. 

It follows from this that when Christian theology passed 
into the Gentile world, when it diffused itself from the Mo- 
saic East into the Socratic West, it must have encountered 


Membership in Christ’s Kingdom 63 


a new difficulty. The Jew who listened to Christ had been 
educated to rest in authority. He had believed in all 
that Moses had taught, in all that Isaiah had taught, and 
as soon as he was convinced that Christ was greater than 
Moses and Isaiah, he submitted with the same deference 
to his authority, and accepted all that Christ nae 
When the life of Christ was put before the Greek, 
affected him to a certain extent as it had done the ce 
He was seized with admiration and reverence. He re- 
zarded him as a divine man, and placed him first by the 
side of Orpheus and Pythagoras, and in the end above 
90th. But this veneration did not imply the same abso- 
ute devotion of the intellect which it had invoked in the 
sase of the Jew. For the Greek had other methods of 
uriving at truth besides imbibing it directly from the lips 
yf wise men. He had a logic in which he had great con- 
idence, and which had already led him to certain definite 
onclusions. If these conclusions should be at war with 
hose authoritatively announced by Christ? Here was a 
lifficulty at the very beginning, and in the course of time 
his difficulty has increased. The scientific methods laid 
jown at first in Greece have been improved, and applied 
with such success that their credit is greatly risen. Men 
may still be disposed to believe in Christ’s infallible wis- 
Jom, but their minds are now accustomed to work with 
great freedom upon all subjects, to have more respect for 
easoning than for authority, and almost to deny know- 
edge to be knowledge when it rests only upon hearsay, 
ind is not verified to the mind itself by demonstration, 
yr at least probable evidence. Accustomed to test and 
veigh everything, and trained in the practice of suspend- 
ng the judgment, they become not so much unwilling as 
ositively unable to receive a proposition merely because 
t is authoritatively delivered. 

Such are some of the difficulties of Christian belief. 
We conclude that though it is always easy for thoughtless 
nen to be orthodox, yet to grasp with any strong prac- 
ical apprehension the theology of Christ is a thing as 
yard as to practise his moral law. Yet if he meant 
inything by his constant denunciation of hypocrites, there 


64 Ecce Homo 


is nothing which he would have visited with stern 
censure than that short cut to belief which many perso 
take when, overwhelmed with the difficulties which bese’ 
their minds, and afraid of damnation, they suddenl 
resolve to strive no longer, but, giving their minds 
holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe an 
acting as if they did. A melancholy end of Christianity 
indeed! Can there be such a disfranchised pauper clas 
among the citizens of the New Jerusalem? , 
But when it is once acknowledged that to attain a full 
and firm belief in Christ’s theology is hard, then it follows 
at once that a man may be a Christian without it. It 
has been shown that the first of all requirements made 
from the earliest Christians was faith, a loyal and free 
confidence in Christ. This was what made the difference 
between them and the careless crowd or the hostile 
Pharisee—that to them Christ was a beloved Master and 
friend. But this faith, if they had it but as a grain of 
mustard-seed, must have assured them that it was not in 
his character to exact of them what it was beyond their 
power to render, and to expect them at once to grasp 
truths which it might well take them all their lives to 
learn. And did he as a matter of fact do so? Do we 
find him frequently examining his followers in their creed, 
and rejecting one as a sceptic and another as an infidel? 
Sceptics they were all, so long as he was among them, a 
society of doubters, attaining to faith only at intervals 
and then falling back again into uncertainty. And from 
their Master they received reproofs for this, but reproofs 
tenderly expressed, not dry threats nor cold dismission. 
Assuredly those who represent Christ as presenting to man 
an abstruse theology, and saying to them peremptorily, 
“ Believe or be damned,” have the coarsest conception of 
the Saviour of the world. He will reject, he tells us, 
those who refuse to clothe the naked or tend the sick, 
those whose lamps have gone out, those who have buried 
their talents, not those whose minds are poorly furnished 
with theological knowledge. Incredulity and uncertainty, 
as long as it seemed honest, he always treated with kind 
consideration; and so disposed was he to the largest 


' Membership in Christ’s Kingdom 65 


tolerance that on one occasion he refused to condemn one 
who, showing some respect for his character, yet dis- 
obeyed his first and most peremptory law—namely, that 
which commanded all persons to follow and attach them- 
selves to him. And on this occasion he uttered words 
which breathe that contempt for forms and that respect 
for what is substantial which is the unfailing mark of a 
commanding spirit—‘“ he that is not against us is on our 
part.” 

_ To what conclusion, then, are we led by these reflections 
upon the question of this chapter—the question, namely, 
what was involved in accepting Christ’s call. Those 
who gathered round him did in the first place contract 
an obligation of personal loyalty to him. On the ground 
of this loyalty he proceeded to form them into a society, 
and to promulgate an elaborate legislation, compris- 
ing and intimately connected with certain declarations, 
authoritatively delivered, concerning the nature of God, 
the relation of man to him, and the invisible world. In 
doing so he assumed the part of a Moses. Now the legis- 
lation of Moses had been absolutely binding upon the 
whole community. Disobedience to his laws had been 
punished by the civil judge, and so had every act which 
implied a conception of the Divine Nature different from 
that which he had prescribed. The new Moses, we have 
seen, had no civil judges to enforce his legislation, but he 
represented his unfaithful servants as being liable to - 
srosecution before the tribunals of the invisible world. 
He described those tribunals as passing capital sentences 
Ipon some criminals, and dismissing them, as he ex- 
gressed it, into “ the outer darkness ”—that is, beyond the 
Jomeerium of that sacred city which is lighted by the- 
slory of God. These are the traitors to the Theocracy 
who have broken its essential obligations. Who then are 
hey? And what are these essential obligations? 

Under the Mosaic law, as under all secular codes, 
ertain definite acts were regarded as unpardonable. 
loses punished the dishonouring of parents and idolatry 
vith death, i.e. absolute exclusion. Now in this respect 
he new Moses is infinitely more tolerant. There are no 

E 


66  Fece Hoa 


specific acts which are unpardonable to the Christian. N: 
amount of disobedience which can be named, no amoun 
of disbelief or ignorance of doctrine, is sufficient to de- 
prive a man of the name of Christian. For it is held in 
the Christian Church that the man most stained with 
crime, and even most unsuccessful in breaking himself of 
criminal habits, and in the same manner the man who 
speculative notions are most erroneous OF despairing, - 
may yet possess that rudiment of goodness which Christ 
called faith. But, on another side, the new Moses is 
infinitely more exacting than the old. For the most 
blameless observance of the whole law is not enough to 
save the Christian from exclusion, unless it has actuall 
sprung from genuine goodness. It may spring from 
natural caution or long-sighted selfishness, and in th 
heart of the strict moralist there may be no spark of 
faith. For such a moralist Christ has no mercy. And 
so it became a maxim in the Christian Church that faith 
justifies a man without the deeds of the law. ’ 
Faith was described above as no proper Christian 
virtue, but as that which was required of a man before he 
became a Christian. This virtue was to be taken by 
Christ and trained by his legislation and theology into 
something far riper and higher. But if the trainin 
should through untoward circumstances almost entirely 
fail, and faith remain a scarcely developed principle, 


bearing fruit but seldom and fitfully in action—never 1s 
inconceivable—still in the Christian view it is life to the 
soul, and the faithful soul, however undeveloped, is at 
home within the illuminated circle, and not in the outel 


darkness. 


: CHAPTER VIII 
BAPTISM 


WE have before us the new Moses surrounded by those 
who are waiting to receive from his lips the institutions 
of a new Theocracy. They have been gathered out of 
the nation; they form the elect part of it. But no con- 
‘straint has been used in enlisting some and rejecting 
others. Those are here in whose hearts there is some. 
thing which answers to such a trumpet-call as that which 
John and Christ had caused to resound through the land. 
Those whose lives are sunk in routine, and no longer 
capable of aspiring or willing or believing, are not here. 
But among the followers of the Legislator there is but 
one common quality. All, except a very few adven- 
turers who have joined him under a mistake and will 
Soon withdraw, have some degree of what he calls faith. 
All look up to him, trust in him, are prepared to obey 
him and to sacrifice something for him. He requires no 
more. This is a valid title to citizenship in the Theo- 
cracy. But in habits and character they differ as much 
as the individuals in any other crowd. Some are sunk 

vice, others lead blameless lives; some have cultivated 

inds, others are rude peasants; some offer to Jehovah 
prayers conceived in the style of Hebrew psalmists and 
rophets, others worship some monstrous idol of the 
terrified imagination or passionless abstraction of philo- 
sophy. It is the object of the society into which this 
motley crowd are now gathered gradually to elevate each 
member of it, to cure him of vice, to soften his rudeness, 
io deliver him from the dominion of superstitious fears or 
ntellectual conceits. But this is the point towards which 
he society tends, not that with which it begins. The 
arogress of each citizen towards this perfection will bear 
. 67 





68 Ecce Homo 


proportion to his natural organisation, to the force with 
which the influences of the society are brought to bear 


pelling power, the indispensable condition of progress, is 
the personal relation of loyal vassalage of the citizen to 
the Prince of the Theocracy. 

The test of this loyalty lay, as we have seen, in the 
mere fact that a man was prepared to attach himself to 
Christ’s person and obey his commands, though by doing 
so some risk and some sacrifice was incurred. Christ, 
however, did not retain everyone who accepted the Call 
about his person; some he dismissed to their homes, 
laying upon them no burdensome commands. It was 
necessary therefore that some mark should be devised by 
which the follower of Christ might be distinguished, and 
by consenting to bear which he might give proof of his 
loyalty. Some initiatory rite was necessary, some public 
formality, in which the new volunteer might take, as it 
were, the military oath and confess his chief before men. 
If such a ceremony could be devised, which should at the 
same time indicate that the new votary had taken upon 
himself not merely a new service but an entirely new 
mode of life, it would be so much the better. Now there 
was already in use among the Jews the rite of baptism. 
It was undergone by those who became proselytes to 
Judaism. Such proselytes signified by submitting to it 
that they passed out of their secular life into the dedicated 
life of citizens in a Theocracy. The water in which they 
were bathed washed away from them the whole un- 
hallowed and unprofitable past; they rose out of it nev 
men into a new world, and felt as though death wer 
behind them and they had been born again into a highe 
state. No ceremony could be better adapted to Christ’ 
purpose than this. It was already in use, and had ac 
quired a meaning and associations which were univer 
sally understood. By calling upon all alike, Jews as wel 
as Gentiles, to submit to it, Christ would intimate that h 
did not merely revive the old Theocracy but instituted | 





Baptism 69 


ew one, so that the children of Abraham themselves, 
‘members of a theocracy from their birth, had a past to 
wash away and a new life to begin, not less than the un- 
‘sanctified Gentile. And at the same time, being publicly 
performed, it would serve as well as any other rite to test 
the loyalty of the new recruit and his readiness to be 
known by his Master’s name. 

This ceremony, then, Christ adopted, and he made it 
absolutely binding upon all his followers to submit to it. 
In the fourth Gospel there is a story which illustrates in 

the most striking manner the importance which Christ 
attached to baptism. A man of advanced years and 
influential position, named Nicodemus, visited Christ, we 
are told, in secret, and entered into conversation with 
him. He began by an explicit avowal of belief in Christ’s 
divine mission. What he would have gone on to say we 
May conjecture from these two facts, namely, that he 
believed in Christ, and that nevertheless he visited him 
secretly. It appears that he hoped to comply with Christ’s 
demand of personal homage and submission, but to be ex- 
cused from making a public avowal of it. And when we 
consider the high position of Nicodemus, it is natural to 
suppose that he hoped to receive such a special exemption 
in consideration of the services he had it in his power to 
render. He could push the movement among the influen- 
tial classes; he could cautiously dispose the Pharisaic 
sect to a coalition with Christ on the ground of their 
common national and theocratic feeling; he might be- 
come a useful friend in the metropolis, and might fight 
against the prejudice which a provincial and Galilean 
party could not but excite. These advantages Christ 
would secure by allowing Nicodemus to become a secret 
member of his Theocracy, and by excusing him, until a 
better opportunity should present itself, from publicly 
undergoing the rite of baptism. On the other hand, by 
insisting upon this he would at once destroy all the in- 
fluence of Nicodemus with the authorities of Jerusalem, 
and with it all his power of becoming a nursing-father 
to the infant Church. When we consider the great con- 
tempt which Christ constantly expressed for forms and 


70 - Ecce Homo 


ceremonies, and in particular for those “ washings ” which 
were usual among the Pharisees, we are prepared to find 
him readily acceding to the request of Nicodemus. In- 
stead of which he shut the petitioner’s mouth by an abrupt 
declaration that there was no way into the Theocracy 
but through baptism. The kingdom of God, he insisted, 
though it had no locality and no separation from the 
secular states of mankind, though it had no law-courts, no 
lictors and no fasces, was yet a true state. Men were not 
to make a light thing of entering it, to give their names 
to the Founder at a secret interview, and immediately re- 
turn to their accustomed places of resort and take up the 
routine of secular life where it had been left. Those who 
would enrol themselves among the citizens of it were to 
understand that they began their life anew, as truly as if 
they had been born again. And lest the Divine Society, 
in its contempt for material boundaries and for the dis- 
tinctness which is given by unity of place, should lose its 
distinctness altogether and degenerate into a theory or a 
sentiment or a devout imagination, the initiatory rite of 
baptism, with its publicity and formality, was pronounced 
as indispensable to membership as that spiritual inspira- 
tion which is membership itself. ; 

Baptism being thus indispensable, we maybe surprised 
to find it so seldom mentioned in the accounts of Christ’s 
life. We do not read, for example, of the baptism of his 
principal disciples. But it is to be remembered that the 
rite of baptism, though used by Christ, was not introduced 
by him, and that he recognised the Theocracy as having 
begun to exist in a rudimentary form before his own 
public appearance. The work of John was merged in that 
of Christ as a river in the sea, but Christ regards those who 
had received John’s baptism as being already members of 
the Theocracy. Since the time of John, he says, the king- 
dom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it 
by force. Now Christ’s first followers were likely to be 
drawn from John’s circle; partly because John himself 
directed his followers to Christ, partly because those who 
were affected by the eloquence of the one prophet were 
naturally formed to fall under the influence of the other. 


: Baptism as 


: That the fact actually was so is attested by our biographies, 
which distinctly speak of Christ as finding his earliest 
disciples in the neighbourhood and among the followers 
of the Baptist. This being the case, we may presume that 
the bulk of the first Christians received baptism from John, 
and found themselves already enrolled in a Society, the 
_ objects of which neither they nor perhaps the Baptist him- 
_ self clearly understood, before they had ever seen the face 
of Christ. The Acts of the Apostles affords many proofs 
that the first Christians regarded John’s disciples as 
members of the Church, but imperfectly instructed. 





CHAPTER IX 
REFLECTIONS ON THE NATURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY 


Or the three parts into which our investigation is divided, 
Christ’s Call, his Legislation, and his Divine Royalty or 
relation to Jehovah, the first is now completed. We have 
considered the nature of the Call, its difference from that 
which was given to Abraham, the means which were 
taken to procure a body of men such as might suitably 
form the foundation of a new and unique Commonwealth, 
and the nature of the obligations they incurred in accept- 
ing the Call: év pév 768 75y TGv tTpiov Tarauoparwr. 

But before we proceed to consider Christ’s Legislation, 
it will be well to linger awhile and reflect on what we 
have learnt. Having ascertained so far what Christ 
undertook to do and did, it will be well to compare it 
with other similar schemes and to form some opinion upon 
the success it was likely to meet with. e 

Let us ask ourselves what-was the ultimate objeet of 
Christ’s scheme. * When the Divine Society was estab-. 
lished and organised, what did he expect it to accom- 
,plish? To the question we may suppose he would have 

. lanswered, ‘The object of the Divine Society is that God’s 
will may be done on earth as it is done in heaven, In the 
language of our own day, its object was the improvement 
of morality. Now this is no strange or unusual object. 
Many schemes have been proposed for curing human 
nature of its vices and helping it to right thought and 
right action. We have now before us the outline of 
Christ’s scheme, and are in a condition to compare it 
with some others that have had the same object, and by 
so doing to discover in what its peculiarity consists. 
Now there is one large class of such schemes with which 
mankind have occupied themselves diligently for many 

72 : 


taietd* atutr do, 


Nature of Christ’s Society 73 


centuries, and which for the purpose of comparison with 
Christianity may be treated as a single scheme. Ever 
since the time of Socrates philosophy has occupied itself 
with the same problem; it has been one of the principal 
‘boasts of philosophy that it teaches virtue and weeds 
vice out of the mind. At the present day those who re- 
ject Christianity commonly represent that in advanced 
civilisation it gives place naturally to moral philosophy. 
Their belief is that the true and only method of making 
men good is by philosophy; and that the good influence 
of Christianity in past ages has been due to the truths of 
moral philosophy which are blended in it with supersti- 
tions which the world in its progress is leaving behind. 

Of course there have been a multitude of systems of 
moral philosophy, which have differed from each other 
in a considerable degree, but they have all resembled 
each other in being philosophy. For the present purpose 
their differences are not important; the important thing 
is that there have been two conspicuous attempts to 
improve mankind morally—the one by moral philosophy, 
the other by means of the Christian Church. Now, as 
nothing assists conception so much as comparison, and it 
is hardly possible to understand anything properly with- 
out putting it by the side of something else, we may 
expect to gain some insight into Christ’s method of curing 
human nature by comparing it with tat of the philo- 
sophers. 

At the first glance the two methods may seem to bear 
a strong resemblance, and we may suspect that the differ- 
ence between them is superficial, and not more than is 
Teadily accounted for by the difference between manners 
and modes of thought in Greece and Palestine. It may 
seem to us that Socrates and Christ were in fact occupied 
in the same way; certainly both lived in the midst of 
admiring disciples, whose minds and characters were 
formed by their words; both discussed moral questions, 
the one with methodical reasoning as a Greek addressing 
Greeks, the other with the authoritative tone and earnest- 
ness of a Jew. There may seem here at first sight a sub- 
Stantial resemblance and a superficial difference. But if 


Se 
’ 








74 Ecce Homo 


we make a more careful comparison, we shall find tha 

precisely the contrary is true, and that the difference is 
really radical, while the resemblance is accidental, It is 
true that Socrates, like Christ, formed a sort of society, 
and that the successors of Socrates formed societies, which 
lasted several centuries, the Academy, the Porch, the 
Garden. But these philosophical societies merely existed 
for convenience) No necessary tie bound the members 
of them together, As the teacher had but one tongue 
and but one lifetime, it was obviously better that he 
should take his pupils in large numbers, or, as it were, in 
classes, rather than teach every individual separately, and 
therefore before the invention of the printing-press a philo- 
sopher usually gathered a society round him. Doubt- 
less, when this had been done, a certain esprit de corps 
sprang up among such societies, and they did, in special 
cases, approximate in some degree to churches. But that 
this was accidental, and not in the original design, appears 
from the fact that since the great diffusion of books, 
philosophers have almost ceased to form societies, and 
content themselves, for the most part, with producing 
conviction in the minds of isolated students by published 
writings. If Socrates were to appear at the present day 
he would hardly bear that resemblance to Christ which 
he bore at Athens. He would form no society. 

Now it was not from accident or for convenience that 
Christ formed a society. Nor were his followers merely 
united by the common desire to hear him speak, and 
afterwards by the friendly feelings that grew out of in- 
timacy. We have seen already, and shall see yet more 
clearly in the sequel, that to organise a society, and to 
bind the members of it together by the closest ties, were 
the business of his life. For this reason it was that he 
called men away from their homes, imposed upon some 
a wandering life, upon others the sacrifice of their pro- 
perty, and endeavoured by all means to divorce them 
from their former connection in order that they might 
find a new home in the Church. For this reason he in- 
_ stituted a solemn initiation, and for this reason refused 
absolutely to give to anyone a dispensation from it. For 


: Nature of Christ's Society a5 


‘this reason too, as we shall see, he established a common 
feast, which was through all ages to remind Christians 
of their indissoluble union. Thus although the term 
disciples or learners is applied in our biographies to the 
followers of Christ, yet we should not suffer this phrase 
‘to remind us of a philosophical school. Learners they 
might be, but they loved better to speak of themselves as 
‘subjects or even “slaves” of Jesus Christ, and to each 
other he exhorted them to be as brothers. 

_ Thus the resemblance between Christ and the ancient 
philosophers vanishes on examination. He was the 
founder of a society to which for a time he found it useful 
to give instruction; they gave instruction to pupils who 
found it convenient to form themselves into a society for 
the sake of receiving it. Hence it was that while they 
‘assumed a name derived from the wisdom they possessed 
and communicated, and were called philosophers, he 
took his title from the community he founded and ruled, 
and called himself King. But as the obvious resem- 
blance between Christ and such a philosopher as Socrates 
vanishes on examination, so we shall find that the obvious 
difference between them —namely, that the one used 
Teasoning and the other authority—appears upon exam-_| 
ination to be radical and fundamental. It was the 
perpetual object of Socrates as much as possible to sink 
his own personality. He wished his arguments to have 
all the weight they might deserve, and his authority 
to count for nothing. Those who have considered the 
meaning of his famous irony know that it was not by any 
means what such a writer as Cicero supposes, a humorous 
device to make his conversation more racy and the con- 
futation of his adversaries more unexpected and decisive. 

He professed to know nothing because he wished to exalt 
his method at his own expense. He wanted to give men 
not truths but a power of arriving at truths, and therefore 
what he found it most necessary to avoid was the tendency 
of his hearers to adopt his conclusions out of mere ad- 
miration for his wisdom and love for his person rather 
than rational conviction. By his determined and con- 
sistent abstinence from all dogmatic assertion he gradually 


76 Ecce Homo 
trained men to believe in a method which, if only 


fully used, discovered truth or verified it as surely, within 
certain limitations, in the hands of an ordinary man as in 
those of a sage. Deservedly he gained the greatest per- 
sonal admiration, but his highest claim to it was the 
trouble he took to avoid it, and the tenacity with which 
he laboured to set the tranquil and methodical operations 
of the intellect in the search of truth above the blind 
impulses of feeling and personal admiration. 

Now in all this we find Christ at the very opposite 
extreme. As with Socrates argument is everything and 
personal authority nothing, so with Christ personal 
authority is all in all and argument altogether unemployed. 
As Socrates is never tired of depreciating himself and 
dissembling his own superiority to those with whom he 
¥. converses, so Christ perpetually and consistently exalts 
himself. As Socrates firmly denies what all admit, and 
explains away what the oracle had announced, viz. his 
own superior wisdom, so Christ steadfastly asserts what 
many were not prepared to admit, viz. his own absolute 
superiority to all men and his natural title to universal 
royalty. The same contrast appears in the requirements 
they made of their followers. Socrates cared nothing 
what those whom he conversed with thought of him; he 
would bear any amount of rudeness from them; but he 
cared very much about the subject of discussion and 
about obtaining a triumph for his method. On the other 
hand, the one thing which Christ required was a certain 
personal attachment to himself, a fidelity or loyalty; and 
so long as they manifested this, he was in no haste to 
deliver their minds from speculative error. 

We may be sure that so marked a contrast does not 
arise merely from the difference between a Semitic and 
European mind. The truth is that as the resemblance 
between the earliest Christian Church and a philosophical 
, school is delusive, so is the resemblance between Christ 
‘himself and any Greek philosopher. Christ had a totally 
different object and used totally different means from 
Socrates. The resemblance is, no doubt, at first sight 
striking. Both were teachers, both were prodigiously 


: Nature of Christ’s Society wi) 
: influential, both suffered martyrdom. But if we examine 
these points of resemblance we shall see that martyrdom 
was, as it were, an accident of the life of Socrates, and 
teaching in a great degree an accident of Christ’s, and 
that their influence upon men has been of a totally 
different kind—that of Socrates being an intellectual 
influence upon thought, that of Christ a.personal influence 
‘upon feeling. What real student of Socrates concerns 
‘himself-with his martyrdom? It is an impressive page 
of history, but the importance of Socrates to men has 
‘no concern with it. Had he died in his bed he would 
‘still have been the creator of science. On the other 
hand, if we isolate Christ’s teaching from his life we 
may come to the conclusion that it contains little that 
‘could not be found elsewhere, and found accompanied 
‘with reasoning and explanation. Those who fix their 
eyes on the Sermon on the Mount, or rather on the naked 
propositions which it contains, and disregard Christ’s 
‘life, his cross, and his resurrection, commit the same 
mistake in studying Christianity that the student of 
Socratic philosophy would commit if he studied only the 
‘dramatic story of his death. Both Socrates and Christ 
‘uttered remarkable thoughts and lived remarkable lives. 
But Socrates holds his place in history by his thoughts 
and not by his life, Christ by his life and not by his 
thoughts. 

It follows that it is a mistake to regard Christianity 
‘as a rudimentary or imperfect moral philosophy. Philo- 
sophy is one thing, and Christianity quite another. And 
‘the difference between them lies here—that philosophy) , 
‘hopes to cure the vices of human nature by working) > 
‘upon the head, and Christianity by educating the heart.| 
The philosopher works upon the man in isolation, though 
he may for convenience assemble his pupils in classes. 
He also abstains carefully from biassing his feelings by 
‘any personal motives and abjures the very principle of 
authority, making it his object to render his pupil his 
own master, to put him in possession of a rule by which 
he may guide his actions, and to relieve him from de- 
pendence upon any external guardianship. Christianity 


78 Ecce Homo ; 
abhors isolation; it gathers men into a society and binds 
them in the closest manner, first to each other, and next 
to Christ himself, whom it represents as claiming their 
enthusiastic devotion on the ground of gratitude, and 
las exhibiting to them by a transcendent example, and 
\also incidentally by teaching, but rather rhetorical than 

cientific teaching, the life they should lead. 

Christianity, then, and moral philosophy are totally 
different things, and yet profess to have the same object, 
namely, the moral improvement of mankind. This being 
the case, as it is probable that they are not precisely 
equally adapted to attain the object, it would seem to 
follow that one of the two is unnecessary. But on con- 
sideration we shall find that each has its function, and 
that philosophy undertakes quite another sort of moral 
improvement than Christianity. The difference may be 
shortly expressed thus:—Both endeavour to lead men to 
do what is right, but philosophy undertakes to explain 
what it is right to do, while Christianity undertakes to 
make men disposed to do it.. Wrong actions spring from 
two causes—bad moral dispositions, and intellectual mis- 
apprehensions. Good men do wrong perpetually, because 
they have not the mental training and skill which may 
enable them to discern the right course in given circum- 
stances. They have good impulses, but they misconceive 
the facts before them, and miscalculate the effect of 
actions. Their intentions are right, but they take wrong 
means of carrying them out. There may be a conflict of 
good impulses, and in such cases one at least must remain 

| unindulged. Duty, in short, as it represents itself to us, is 
| avery complicated matter. To do it with certainty a man 

_must not be good merely but wise. He must have reflected 
| deeply on human affairs and on social laws; he must have 
|reduced the confusion of good feelings which exists at 
| starting in the well-disposed mind to order and clearness. 

' This, then, is what philosophy undertakes to help him 
to do. 

But suppose the good feelings wanting at the outset. 
What will it avail in such a case that philosophy should 
point out the right course? When the man whose impulses 


: Nature of Christ’s Society 79 


‘are bad has plainly understood by the aid of philosophy 
which is the right course and which the wrong, what will 


he do? Clearly he will take the wrong. Some additional , 


‘machinery is wanted which may evoke the good impulses, 


cherish them, and make them masters of the bad ones. | 
If this is not done, what avails it to give a man the know-. 


ledge of what is right? It will but help him to avoid it.” 


We have heard of a fruit which gave the knowledge of 
good, but it was “knowledge of good bought dear by 
knowing ill.” 

__ Now this machinery is what Christ undertakes to supply. 
Philosophers had drawn their pupils from the élite of 
humanity; but Christ finds his material among the worst 
‘and meanest, for he does not propose merely to make the 
good better but the bad good. And what is his machinery ? 
He says the first step towards good dispositions is for a 
man to form a strong personal attachment. Let him first 
be drawn out of himself. Next let the object of that 
attachment be a person of striking and conspicuous good- 
ness. To worship such a person will be the best exercise 
in virtue that he can have. Let him vow obedience in 
life and death to such a person; let him mix and live with 
others who have made the same vow. He will have ever 
before his eyes an ideal of what he may himself become. 
His heart will be stirred by new feelings, a new world will 
be gradually revealed to him, and, more than this, a new 
self within his old self will make its presence felt, and 
a change will pass over him which he will feel it most 
appropriate to call a new birth. This is Christ’s scheme 
Stated in its most naked form; we shall have abundant 
Opportunities in the sequel of expounding it more fully. 
But if philosophy undertakes to solve the same problem, 
what is its method? By what means does it hope to 
awaken good impulses in hearts that were before enslaved 
to bad ones? By eloquent exhortation perhaps, or by the 
examples of life led philosophically. Nay, whatever effect 
these instruments may have, they are instruments of the 
same kind as those of Christianity. Example is a personal 
influence, and impassioned eloquence works upon the feel- 
ings. If we are to exchange Christianity for these, it must 


80 Ecce Homo 

























be because the philosophers can put before us an examp! 
more elevated than that of Christ, and eloquence more 
impressive than that of the Sermon on the Mount. F 
sophy, as such, works by reasoning, by enlightening 
mind, by exposing miscalculations and revealing things as 
they are. Now by what process of this kind can the bad 
man be turned into the good? Where is the demonstre 
tion that will make the selfish man prefer another’s interest 
tohisown? Your dialectic may force him to acknowledge 
the right action, but where is the dialectic that shall 
force him to do it? Where is the logical dilemma that 
. can make a knave honest? 
_X~ The truth is that philosophy has no instruments that it 
can use for this purpose. There exists no other such in 
strument but that personal one of which Christ availed 
himself. And this personal influence it is the natural 
operation of philosophy in some degree to counteract, 
So far from creating good impulses, philosophy does some= 
thing towards paralysing and destroying them. For per 
petual and absorbing mental activity blunts in some degree 
those feelings in which the life of virtue resides; at the 
same time it creates a habit of solitude, and solitude is th 
death of all but the strongest virtue. But the philosophe 
may answer to this that the more important part of moral 
improvement is that which explains to us what it is righ 
to do, and that good impulses are provided by nature with 
tolerable impartiality to all. We may think that gooc 
impulses do not require to be artificially provided, or tha 
they cannot be provided in any great degree by am 
machinery. Well! it is a question of fact. His own expert 
“ence must decide it for each person. Assuredly there a 
vast moral differences in the people we meet, and we aré 
able for the mest part to refer those differences to som 
cause or other. Let the Christian principle be compare¢ 
in its results with the philosophical one; that is, let th 
virtue which has arisen from contact and personal ties with 
the good be compared with that which is the unaided frui 
of solitary reflection. Who is the philosophic good man 
He is one who has considered all the objects and conse 
quences of human action; he has, in the first place, per 


Nature of Christ’s Society 81 


‘ceived that there is in hima principle of sympathy, the due 
development of which demands that he should habitually 
consider the advantage of others; he has been led by re- 
flection to perceive that the advantage of one individual 
may often involve the injury of several ; he has thence 
concluded that it is necessary to lay down systematic rules 
for his actions lest he should be led into such miscalcu- 
lations, and he has in this reasonable and gradual manner 
arrived at a system of morality. This is the philosophic 
good man. Do we find the result satisfactory? Do we 
not find in him a languid, melancholic, dull and hard tem- 
perament of virtue? He does right perhaps, but without 
warmth or promptitude. Andnowonder! The principle 
of sympathy was feeble in him at the beginning for want 
of contact with those who might have called it into play, 
and it has been made feebler still by hard brain-work and 
solitude. He startles us at times by sudden immoralities 
into which he is betrayed by ingenuity unchecked by 
healthy feeling. His virtue has intermissions and fits of 
lassitude; he becomes guilty of small transgressions for 
which he hopes to compensate by works of easy super- 
srogation. Virtue thus exhibited does not excite in the 
seholder those “ strange yearnings ” of devotion of which 
Plato spoke. No one loves such a man 3 people feel for 
lim an esteem mixed with pity. On the other hand, who 
s the good man that we admire and love? How do men 
ecome for the most part “ pure, generous, and humane ”’? 
3y personal, not by logical influences. They have been 
eared by parents who had these qualities, they have 
ived in a society which had a high tone, they have been 
ccustomed to see just acts done, to hear gentle words 
poken, and the justness and the gentleness have passed 
to their hearts and slowly moulded their habits, and 
dade their moral discernment clear 3 they remember 
ommands and prohibitions which it is a pleasure to 
bey for the sake of those who gave them; often they 
hink of those who may be dead and say, ““ How would 
uis action appear tohim? Would he approve that word, 
r disapprove it?” To such no baseness appears a small 
aseness because its consequences may be small, nor does 
F 


82 Ecce Homo 


their necks, nor do they dream of covering a sin by 
atoning act of virtue. Often in solitude they blush when 
some impure fancy sails across the clear heaven of their 
minds, because they are never alone, because the absent 
Examples, the Authorities they still revere, rule not their 
actions only but their inmost hearts; because their con- 
science is indeed awake and alive, representing all the 
nobleness with which they stand in sympathy, and re 
porting their most hidden indecorum before a public 
opinion of the absent and the dead. 

Of these two influences—that of Reason and that of 
Living Example—which would a wise reformer reinforce? 
Christ chose the last. He gathered all men into a common 
relation to himself, and demanded that each should set 
him on the pedestal of his heart, giving a lower place tc 
all other objects of worship, to father and mother, to hus 
band or wife. In him should the loyalty of all heart 
centre, he should be their pattern, their Authority, anc 
Judge. Of him and his service should no man be ashamed 
but to those who acknowledged it morality should be ar 
easy yoke, and the law of right as spontaneous as the lay 
of life; sufferings should be easy to bear, and the loss 0 
worldly friends repaired by a new home in the bosom 0 
the Christian kingdom; finally, in death itself their slee 
should be sweet upon whose tombstone it could be writte 
“ Obdormivit in Christo.” 


the yoke of law seem burdensome although it is ever a 


We have insisted upon the effect of personal inflt 
ence in creating virtuous impulses. We have describe 
Christ’s Theocracy as a great attempt to set all the virtt 
of the world upon this basis, and to give it a visible cent 
or fountain. But we have used generalities. It is at 
visable, before quitting the subject, to give a sing 
example of the magical passing of virtue out of the virtt 
ous man into the hearts of those with whom he comes 
contact. A remarkable story which appears in St. John 
biography, though it is apparently an interpolation 
that place, may serve this purpose, and will at the san’ 


| Nature of Christ’s Society 83 


| time illustrate the difference between scholastic or scien- 


_ tific and living or instinctive virtue. Some of the leading 
Teligious men of Jerusalem had detected a woman in 
adultery. It occurred to them that the case afforded a 
good opportunity of making an experiment upon Christ. 
They might use it to discover how he regarded the Mosaic 
law. That he was heterodox on the subject of that law 
they had reason to believe, for he had openly quoted some 
Mosaic maxims and declared them at least incomplete, 
‘Substituting for them new rules of his own, which at least 
in some cases appeared to abrogate the old. It might be 
possible, they thought, by means of this woman to satisfy 
at once themselves and the people of his heterodoxy. 
They brought the woman before him, quoted the law of 
Moses on the subject of adultery, and asked Christ directly 
whether he agreed with the lawgiver. They asked for his 
judgment. 
A judgment he gave them, but quite different, both in 
matter and manner, from what they had expected. In 
thinking of the “case” they had forgotten the woman, 
they had forgotten even the deed. What became of the 
criminal appeared to them wholly unimportant; towards 
her crime or her character they had no feeling whatever, 
not even hatred, still less pity or sympathetic shame. If 
they had been asked about her, they might probably have 
answered, with Mephistopheles, “She is not the first ” 5 
nor would they have thought their answer fiendish, only 
practical and business-like. Perhaps they might on re- 
lection have admitted that their frame of mind was not 
strictly moral, not quite what it should be, that it would 
aave been better if, besides considering the legal and 
eligious questions involved, they could have found leisure 
or some shame at the scandal and some hatred for the 
inner. But they would have argued that such strict 
opriety is not possible in this world, that we have too 
nuch on our hands to think of these niceties, that the 
han who makes leisure for such refinements will find his 
vork in arrears at the end of the day, and probably also 
hat he is doing injustice to his family and those de- 
endent on him. 


, 







84 Ecce Homo 


This they might fluently and plausibly have ur 
But the judgment of Christ was upon them, making 
things seem new, and shining like the lightning from 
one end of heaven to the other. He was standing, i 


narrated, how the adultery had been detected in the uv 
act. The shame of the deed itself, and the brazen hard- 
ness of the prosecutors, the legality that had no justi 
and did not even pretend to have mercy, the religious 
malice that could make its advantage out of the fall and 
ruin and ignominious death of a fellow-creature—all this 
was eagerly and rudely thrust before his mind at once. 
The effect upon him was such as might have been produced 
upon many since, but perhaps upon scarcely any man that 
ever lived before. He was seized with an intolerable sense 
of shame. He could not meet the eye of the crowd, or of 
the accusers, and perhaps at that moment least of all of 
the woman. Standing as he did in the midst of an eager 
multitude that did not in the least appreciate his feelings, 
he could not escape. In his burning embarrassment and 
confusion he stooped down so as to hide his face, and 
began writing with his finger on the ground. His tor- 
mentors continued their clamour, until he raised his head 
for a moment and said, “ He that is without sin among 
you let him first cast a stone at her,” and then instantly 
returned to his former attitude. They had a glimpse 
perhaps of the glowing blush upon his face, and awoke 
suddenly with astonishment to a new sense of their con: 
dition and their conduct. The older men naturally fel 
it first and slunk away; the younger followed thei 
example. The crowd dissolved and left Christ alon 
with the woman. Not till then could he bear to stant 
upright; and when he had lifted himself up, consistentl 
with his principle, he dismissed the woman, as havi 
no commission to interfere with the office of the civ] 
judge- 

But the mighty power of living purity had done it 
work. He had refused to judge a woman, but he hai 
judged a whole crowd. He had awakened the slumbet 
ing conscience in many hardened hearts, given them 


Nature of Christ’s Society 85 


new delicacy, a new ideal, a new view and reading of the 
Mosaic law, 
__ And yet this crowd was either indifferent or bitterly 
hostile to him. Let us imagine the correcting, elevating 
influence of his presence upon those who, so far from 
being indifferent, were bound to him by the ties which 
bind a soldier to his superior officer, a clansman to his 
chief, a subject to a king ruling by Divine right, aye, and 
by ties far closer. The ancient philosophers were accus- 
tomed to enquire about virtue, whether it can be taught. 
Yes! it can be taught, and in this way. But if this way 
be abandoned, and moral philosophy be set up to do that 
which in the nature of things philosophy can never do, 
the effect will appear in a certain slow deterioration of 
Manners which it would be hard to describe had it not 
been described already in well-known words: “ Sophistry 
and calculation ” will take the place of “ chivalry.” There 
will be no more “ generous loyalty,” no more “ proud sub- 
Mission,” no more “ dignified obedience.” A stain will no 
more be felt like a wound, and our hardened and coarsened 
manners will lose the “ sensibility of principle and the 
chastity of honour.” ; 





PART SECOND 
CHRIST’S LEGISLATION 


CHAPTER X 


CHRIST’S LEGISLATION COMPARED WITH PHILOSOPHIC 
SYSTEMS 


WE have thus traced the rise of a monarchy, the-purest 
and the most ideal that has ever existed among men. 
The most ideal, for in this monarchy alone the obedience 
of the subject was in no case reluctant or mercenary, but 
grounded upon a genuine conviction of the immeasurable 
superiority in goodness, wisdom, and power of the ruler. 
Such a superiority is always supposed to exist in a king, 
and to constitute the ground of his authority; but this is 
in most cases a fiction which deceives no one, and only 
sustains itself in bombastic titles and hollow liturgies of 
court etiquette. Where, however, the king has risen in 
disturbed times from a private station, and has won his 
sceptre by merit, the theory is no mere constitutional 
fiction. Such a king is, to many of his subjects, the true 
master he claims to be to all; there are many who obey 
him from a voluntary loyalty, who do in their hearts 
worship his superiority, and who find their freedom 
in accepting his yoke. But even in this case there are 
many whose submission is reluctant and sullen, or else 
mercenary and hypocritical. There is always at least 
a minority whose subjection is secured by force. In 
Christ’s. monarchy no force was used, though all power 
was at command; the obedience of his servants became 
in the end, though not till after his departure, absolutely 
unqualified, even when it involved the sacrifice of life; and 


1 
: Christ’s Legislation 87 
it was obtained from them by no other means than the 
natural influence of a natural superiority. 

This monarchy was essentially despotic, and might, in 
spite of the goodness of the sovereign, have had some 

mischievous consequences, if he had remained too long 
among his subjects, and if his dictation had descended 
too much into particulars. But he shunned the details of 
administration, and assumed only the higher functions of 
a heroic monarch—those of organisation and legislation. 
And when these were sufficiently discharged, when his 
whole mind and will had expressed itself in precept and 
signed itself for ever in transcendent deeds, he withdrew 
_to a secret post of observation, from whence he visited his 
people for the future only in refreshing inspirations and 
great acts of providential justice. 

The time has now come for examining the legislation 
which Christ gave to his Society. It has an important 
point of likeness and at the same time of unlikeness to 
the legislation which it superseded. The legislation which 
Jehovah gave to the Jews was always regarded by them 
‘not merely as a rule for their own actions, but as a reflec- 
tion and revelation of the character of their Invisible King. 
The faithful Jew in obeying Jehovah became like Him. 
This inspiring reflection gave life and moral vigour to the 
“Mosaic system. But that system laboured at the same 

time under the disadvantage that Jehovah was known to 
‘His subjects only through His law. Only in prohibition 
and penalty was He revealed, only in thunder could His 
voice be heard. Now the law of Christ was in like manner 
a reflection of the mind of the lawgiver; but the new 
Jehovah made his character known not by his code merely, 
but by a life led in the sight of men, by “‘ going in and out ” 
among the people. The effect of this novelty was incal- 
‘culable. It was a moral emancipation; it was freedom 
succeeding slavery. The experience of daily life may ex- 
plain this to us. It is a slavish toil to learn any art by 
text-books merely, without the assistance of a tutor; the 
written rule is of little use, is scarcely intelligible, until 
we have seen it reduced to practice by one who can 
practise it easily and make its justice apparent. The ease 


88 Ecce Homo 


and readiness of the master are infectious; the pupil, 
he looks on, conceives a new hope, a new self-reliance 
he seems already to touch the goal which before appear 
removed to a hopeless distance. It is a slavery whi 
soldiers are driven against the enemy by the despotic com- 
mand of a leader who does not share,the danger, but the 
service becomes free and glorious when the general rides 

to the front. Such was the revival of spirit which the 
Jew experienced when he took the oath to Christ, and 
which he described by saying that he was no longer under 

the law but under grace. He had gained a tutor instead 
of a text-book, a leader instead of a master, and when he 

learned what to do, he learned at the same time how to 
do it, and received encouragement in attempting it. And 
the law which Christ gave was not only illustrated, but 

infinitely enlarged by his deeds. For every deed was 
itself a precedent to be followed, and therefore to discuss” 
the legislation of Christ is to discuss his character: for 
it may be justly said that Christ himself is the Christian 
law. 

We must therefore be careful not to consider Christ’s 
maxims apart from the deeds which were intended to 
illustrate them. There shave been few teachers whose 
words will less bear to be divorced from their context 
of occasion and circumstance. But we find in our bio- 
graphies the report of a long discourse, which, as far as 
we know, was suggested by no special incidents, and 
which seems to have been intended as a general exposition 
of the laws of the new kingdom. This discourse is com- 
monly called the Sermon on the Mount; it is recognised 
by all as the fundamental document of Christian morality, 
and by some it is regarded as constituting Christ’s prin- 
cipal claim upon the homage of the world. Naturally 
therefore it first attracts the attention of those who wish 
to consider him in his character of legislator or moralist. 

The style of the Sermon on the Mount is neither purely 
philosophical nor purely practical. It refers throughout 
to first principles, but it does not state them in an 
abstract form; on the other hand, it enters into special 
cases and detail, but never so far as to lose sight of 






| Christ’s Legislation 89 
first principles. It is equally unlike the early national 
codes, which simply formularised without method exist- 
‘ing customs, and the early moral treatises such as those of 
Plato and Aristotle, which are purely scientific. Of Jewish 
‘writings it resembles most the book of Deuteronomy, in 
which the Mosaic law was recapitulated in such a manner 
as to make the principles on which it was founded ap- 
parent; of Gentile writings it may be compared with 
those of Epictetus, Aurelius, and Seneca, in which we see 
@ scientific morality brought to bear upon the struggles 
and details of actual life. It uses all the philosophical 
machinery of generalisation and distinction, but its object 
is not philosophical but practical—that is, not truth but 
ood. 

. As then this discourse has a philosophic unity, let us 
try to discover what that unity is. As it propounds to 
us a scheme of life founded upon a principle, let us try to 
state the principle. The work of all legislators, reformers, 
and philosophers is in one respect alike; it is in all cases 
a protest against a kind of life which, notwithstanding, 
might seem to have its attractions, which, at any rate, 
suggests itself very naturally to men, and is not abandoned 
without reluctance. All reformers call on men to reduce 
their lives to a rule different from that of immediate self- 
interest, to live according to a permanent principle and not, 
as the poet says, “at random.” Against the dominion 
of appetite all the teachers of mankind are at one: all 
agree in repudiating the doctrine of the savage: 

I bow to ne’er a god except myself, 

And to my Belly, first of deities. 
| To eat and drink your daily food and drink, 
| This is the creed of sober-minded people, 

And not to fret yourself. But those who make 

Laws, and sophisticate the life of man, 
_ I bid them pack. 

In the time of Christ, when Socrates had been in his 
grave four hundred years, it was hardly necessary for a 
philosopher to inveigh in set terms against such naked 
self-indulgence. The rudimentary lessons of philosophy 
had now been widely diffused. But as Christ called the 
poor into his kingdom, and addressed his invitation to 


: 
f 


go Ecce Homo 


those whom no reformer had hoped before to win, 
was at the trouble to reason with this grossest egois 
On one occasion he told a homely tale of a man wh 
absorbed in the pursuit and enjoyment of wealth, wa 
struck at the very moment of complete self-satisfaction by 
sudden death, and compelled to relinquish the treasures he 
had sacrificed every lasting good to amass. At another 
time he went further, and described tortures and agonies 
which might await on the further side of death some 
whose lot had been most enviable on this. And in the 
discourse before us he expostulates, though in a gentler 
tone, with the same class of sensualists. 

There are two principal ways of rebuking lawless sen- 
suality: it is most important to consider whether Christ’s 
method coincides with either of them. The first is to ad- 
mit the sensualist to be right in his end, but charge him 
with clumsiness in his choice of means. To get the greatest 
amount of pleasure, it may be said, is the only rational 
object which a man can propose to himself; but to sup- 
pose that this object can be attained either by recklessly 
gratifying every desire as it arises, or by collecting huge 
heaps of the ordinary material of pleasure, such as money 
or food or fine clothes, is childish. Pleasure is a delicate 
plant, and cannot be cultivated without much study and 
practice. Any excess of it is followed by a reaction of 
disgust and by a diminution in the power of entertaining 
it. If you would live in the constant enjoyment of it, 
you must carefully ascertain how large a dose it will be 
safe to take at a time, and then you must drill yourself 
by a constant discipline never to exceed that dose, 
Again, what is pleasant to one man is not equally so to 
another; you must study your own disposition; you 
must learn to know your own mind, and not slavishly 
enjoy through another man’s senses. Once more, pleasant 
things, such as food or fine clothes, are indeed among the 
conditions of pleasure, but they do not by themselves 
constitute it. He who devotes himself to the acquisition 
of these, and neglects to prepare his own mind for the full 
enjoyment of them, will defeat his own object and sacri 
fice the end to the means. We must therefore tell the 


' 


| Christ’s Legislation gi 


alist not that he loves pleasure too much, but that 
he ought to love it more, that he ought to seek it more 
exclusively, and not to suffer himself to be cheated by 
the mere external semblance and counterfeit of it. 
_ Of course it is quite unjust to represent this theory as 
repudiating moral virtue. Among the indispensable con- 
itions of pleasure virtue may very well be reckoned: it 
is perfectly open to an Epicurean philosopher to declare all 
other instruments of pleasure to be inoperative and useless 
mpared with or independent of virtue. And those who 
think that we should not make pleasure our chief object, 
yet commonly maintain that he who lives best will actually 
ttain the greatest amount and the best kind of pleasure; 
so that the most successful votary of pleasure would coin- 
ide with the ideal man of the very schools which most 
ehemently denounce pleasure-worship. The practical 
bjection te Epicureanism is not so much that it makes 
leasure the summum bonum, as that it recommends us 
keep this summum bonum always in view. For it is far 
m being universally true that to get a thing you must 
im atit. There are some things which can only be gained 
by renouncing them. To use a familiar illustration: it is 
easy to breathe evenly so long as you do not think about 
it; butas soon as you try, it becomes impossible. Many of 
e moral virtues are of this kind. Simplicity of character 
ot be produced by thinking of it; rather, the more you 
af sl of it the further you travel into the opposite extreme 














f self-consciousness. The grace of humility is not to be 
won by constantly comparing yourself with others and 
Bo noeuing your deficiencies; this method is more likely to 
issue in hypocritical self-conceit. Now, a practical survey 
of life seems to show that pleasure in its largest sense—a 
ond deep enjoyment of life—is also not to be gained 
artificially. Much of what Epicureans say is doubtless 
true and valuable; our pleasures may be considerably 
od by a little common sense; we often break the 

Pp or upset it in our excessive eagerness to drain it to 
the bottom. Still, we destroy pleasure by making it our 
ief object; its essential nature is corrupted when it is 
ade into a business: the highest perfection of it is not 


g2 Ecce Homo 


among the prizes of exertion, the rewards of industry 
ingenuity, but a bounty of nature, a grace of God. 
contrivance and skill only an inferior sort can be attain 

to which the keenness, the glee, the racy bitter of 
sweet, is wanting. And this is the utmost that can b 
attained ; this is what can be made of pleasure by 
most skilful artificers of it. What, then, would the poor 
and simple-minded gain from such a principle? Epicu- 
reanism popularised inevitably turns to vice; no skill in 
the preachers of it will avail for a moment to prevent the 
obscene transformation. It would probably be safe to go 
farther, and say that Epicureanism means vice in all cases 
except ‘where a rare refinement and tenderness of nature 
creates a natural propensity to virtue so strong as to aq 
arm the most corrupting influence. 

We need not, then, be surprised to find that Christ, 
whose purpose was entirely practical, and who was legis- 
lating not for a small minority but for mankind, did not 
place. his reproof of sensuality on this ground. When he 
said, ‘“‘ Fret not yourself about your life what ye shall eat, 
nor about your body what ye shall put on,” he did not 
on to say, “‘ Remember for what end food and clothing are 
intended; remember that they are only the appliances of 
pleasure, and make it your object to gain pleasure not 
through these means only, but by every means within 
your reach, including moral virtue.” But he proposes 
another object altogether—‘ the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness.” 

There is another way in which it has been common to 
argue with the sensualist. It has been said that the 
sensualist makes bodily pleasure his object, and that in so 
doing he forgets that man possesses a soul as well as a 
body. This soul, it is said, is the nobler part of the man; 
the body is but a base appendage more or less useful, but 
so far inferior that it should be treated as a slave, and sO 
intractable that it requires to be coerced, punished, kept 
to hard labour, and stinted of sustenance and pleasure. 
The interests of the body are not worth considering; the 
man should occupy himself with those of the soul—that is, 
the acquisition of knowledge, self-sufficiency, and virtue. 


: Christ’s Legislation 93 


But this reasoning, in the first place, convinces very few, 
and, in the second, has an injurious effect upon those 
whom it convinces. The soul and body are inextricably 
united. It is of no practical use to consider them apart; 
and if we do so, it is clear that the human body is not a 
base or mean thing, but, on the contrary, one of the most 
noble and glorious things known. Again, if it is to be 
made subservient to the soul, experience abundantly 
shows that the soul does not advance its own interests by 
altreating its slave. Discipline and coercion may some- 
times be necessary, but the soul loses its tone and health 
if the interests of the body are not consulted, and if its 
desires are not in a moderate degree satisfied. And 
those who learn from these reasoners to depreciate the 
body, first become inhumanly cold to natural beauty and 
out of sympathy with the material universe, and secondly, 
while they slight their own bodily comforts, disregard 
the physical well-being of their neighbours, and become 
unfeeling and cruel. 
Christ, then, as a practical legislator, did not depreciate 
the body. On the contrary, he showed, both in this 
Sermon and in his whole career, a tenderness of the bodily 
well-being of men, such as no philosophical school except 
the Epicureans had shown, and such as the Epicureans 
themselves had not surpassed. He spent the greater 
part of his short life in healing sick people, and of the 
comforts which he restored to others he did not disdain 
himself to partake. He was to be met at weddings; 
many of the discourses which his biographies preserve 
were suggested by the incidents of feasts and banquets at 
which he was present; and so marked was the absence of 
asceticism both in his own life and in that which he pre- 
scribed for his disciples, that his enemies called him a 
glutton and a wine-bibber, and he had to apologise for 
the indulgent character of his discipline by pointing with 
sad foresight to the sufferings which his followers would 
all too soon have to endure. But the words of this Sermon 
are even more striking. He divides himself at once from 
the ascetic and the Stoic. They had said, “ Make your- 
selves independent of bodily comforts” ; he says, “ Ye 





94 Ecce Homo 


have need of these things.” But if the Epicurean o 
the sensualist take advantage of these words and say 
“If you have need of these things, make it your study t 
obtain them,” he parts company not less decidedly witl 
these, and says, “ True pleasure is not thus to be had 
It is the healthy bloom of the spirit which must com: 
naturally or not at all. Those who think about it lose it 
or, if not, produce with all their labour but a poor imita 
tion of it. Self-consciousness and sensualism is the enem} 
of true delight. Solomon on his throne was gaudy; th 
lilies of the field are better drest. Epicurus in his garder 
was languid; the birds of the air have more enjoymen 
of their food.” 

We are therefore to dismiss pleasure from our thought: 
as a thing which we are indeed made to possess, yet ar 
unable by our own efforts to obtain. We are to expec 
that it will come of itself, and in the meanwhile we ar 
to adopt a mode of life which has no reference to it. Bu 
if this rule should prescribe a course of conduct whicl 
so far from producing pleasure should involve us in th 
most painful difficulties and hardships, shall we ther 
turn back as though the promise were unfulfilled? Anc 
if it should issue in death itself, and thus absolutely 
prevent to all appearance the promise from being fulfilled 
what shall we think? Christ anticipates our perplexity 
Such cases he tells us will frequently arise. His rule o 
life will often, nay generally, involve us in hardships, anc 
at certain periods in death itself. But the Creator of th 
world, our Father in Heaven, from whom alone, in al 
cases, genuine pleasure and satisfaction comes, is mor 
to be trusted than these adverse appearances. Pleasurt 
shall assuredly be ours, but in no extremity are we t 
make it our object. You shall suffer and yet you shal 
enjoy. Both are certain, and it is not worth while t 
attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction. ‘ Som: 
of you shall they put to death . . . and there shall no’ 
a hair of your head perish.” 

This paradoxical position—that pleasure is necessary fo! 
us, and yet that it is not to be sought; that this world i: 
to be renounced, and yet that it is noble and glorious— 


Christ’s Legislation 95 


ight, if it had been taken up by a philosopher, have been 
tegarded as a subtlety which it would be impossible to 
act upon. But as the law laid down by a King and 
Master of mankind, every word of whom was treasured 
up and acted out with devotion, it has had a surprising 
influence upon human affairs. In the times of the Roman 
Emperors there appeared a sect which distinguished itself 
by the assiduous attention which it bestowed upon the 
bodily wants of mankind. This sect set the first example 
of a homely practical philanthropy, occupying itself with 
the relief of ordinary human sufferings, dispensing food 
and clothing to the destitute and starving. At the same 
period there appeared a sect which was remarkable for 
the contempt in which it held human suffering. Roman 
magistrates were perplexed to find, when it became neces- 
sary to coerce this sect by penal inflictions, that bodily 
pains, tortures, and death itself were not regarded as 
evils by its members. These two sects appeared to run 
into contrary extremes. The one seemed to carry their 
tegard for the body to the borders of effeminacy; the 
other pushed Stoical apathy almost to madness. Yet 
these two sects were one and the same—the Christian 
Church. And though within that body every conceivable 
corruption has at some time or other sprung up, this tra- 
dition has never been long lost, and in every age the 
Christian temper has shivered at the touch of Stoic 
apathy and shuddered at that of Epicurean indolence. 

But we have not yet, except by negatives, answered the 
question how Christ argued with the sensualist. We 
have discovered as yet only that he did not employ two 
common arguments. For a lawless pursuit of bodily 
enjoyment he did not exhort him to substitute either a 
methodical pursuit of the same object or a pursuit of 
intellectual and moral well-being. What, then, did he 
substitute? What was that “kingdom of God and his 
righteousness ”’ which he bade men make the first object 
of their search? 





CHAPTER XI : 
THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC , 


“ SEEK ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous. 
‘ ness.” This exhortation is precisely what we had reason 
to expect, for we have already remarked that the cry 
which John raised in the desert, “ The kingdom of heaven 
is at hand,” was taken up by Christ, and that his life was 
devoted to proclaiming this new political constitution, te 
collecting adherents to it, and promulgating its laws. That 
kingdom of God into which he called men he elevates ix 
this passage into the swmmum bonum of human life, and 
represents it as the secret of happiness and of all enduring 
good to belong to the divine society, and to cndetaal 
and keep the rules prescribed for its members. 

Before we enquire into the nature of this society and 
its rules, it is important to consider what is implied in 
fact that Christ placed the happiness of man in a politi 
constitution. The philosophical schemes which we ha: 
described Christ as rejecting consider man as an inde 
pendent being, and provide for him an isolated ie 
or welfare. The ideal Epicurean is described as indifferen 
to public affairs and falling kingdoms, and exempt fro 
the pain alike of pity for the poor and jealousy of the ric 
To be self-sufficient was a principal ambition of the riv: 
school. But a member of a gtate is one who has cease 
to have a personal object, and who has made his welfa 
dependent on that of others. He sacrifices himself to 
body of which he has become a member. In giving u 
present pleasure he does not differ from the isolated m 
of the philosophers, but he differs from him in giving it u 
not prudentially that he may get more of it in the end 
something better than it, but disinterestedly and for thi 
sake of other people. It is no doubt true that a man 


96 . 
wy 


| The Christian Republic 97 


personal happiness is much increased by becoming a mem- 
ber of a community and having an object apart from him- 
self; for, according to the paradox already stated, no man 
is so happy as he who does not aim at happiness. But 
that such personal happiness is not the ultimate object of 
the social union is plain from this, that men are expected 
to sacrifice not a part of their happiness, but all of it, for 
the state, and to die in battle for a cause in which they 
may have no personal interest, and which they may even 
hold to be unjust. It was not with any personal object 
whatever, it was with no hope of reward in a future state, 
it was not for glory, if their poet may be believed, but in 
‘obedience to the laws of Sparta, that-the three hundred 
laid down their lives in the pass of Thermopyle. Such 
disinterested surrender is implied in the very notion 

f a political community. It is accordingly inculcated 
ughout this discourse as the great duty of those who 

ter the kingdom of God. They are to surrender all 
tsonal claims—not only, as Christ said often on other 
occasions, goods and property, life and family ties, but 
rad claims, which it seems not painful merely but de- 








ing to waive—the claims of wounded honour, of just 
resentment of injuries. All these things we are to be 
repared to surrender, as he said elsewhere, “ hoping for 
Bihine again.” : 
_ And yet it may be said the sacrifice which Christ exacts 
Sno more genuine than that recommended by the Epicu- 
ca, for he never fails to promise a full recompense in 
he world to come. Scarcely once in this Sermon does he 
culcate self-sacrifice without a reference to the other 
ide of the account—to the treasures God has in store for 
lose who despise the gold and silver of the earth. And 
Owever much we may admire the Christian martyrs, yet 
Ow can we compare their self-devotion with that of the 
partan three hundred or the Roman Decius? Those 
Toes surrendered all, and looked forward to nothing 
t the joyless asphodel meadow or “ drear Cocytus with 
languid stream.” But the Christian martyr might 
ell die with exultation, for what he lost was poor com- 
3 with that which he hoped instantly to gain. The 
; G 


| 


98 Ecce Homo 


happiness he expected may not have been sensual; it w 
not “ the sparkle of female eyes, the handkerchief of gre 
silk, the cap of precious stones,” * that comforted him for 
the loss of this life, but he expected a personal and real, if 
not a sensual happiness. 

It is most true that Christ’s society, like all other polit- 
ical societies, does promise happiness to its members; it 
is further true that it promises this happiness, not as other 
societies in general, but to every individual member. The 
most complete self-sacrifice therefore, the love that gives 
up all, is impossible in the Christian Church, as it is rarely 
possible in any society, as one must suppose it impossible 
in the ideal society. Still the paradox must be repeated: 
though self-surrender lead in general, though it lead in: 
fallibly, to happiness, yet happiness is not its object. And 
if this seem a pedantic refinement outrageous to commor 
sense, it will not appear so when we consider the natur 
of the self-surrender which Christ enjoins. For such self 
surrender with such an object is simply impossible. 4 
man can no doubt do any specific acts, however painful 
with a view to his ultimate interest. With a view to hi 
ultimate interest a man may fast, may impose painfu 
penances on himself; nay, with a view to his ultimate in 
terest a man may go two miles with one who has com 
pelled him to go one, may turn the left cheek to one wh 
has smitten him on the right, nay, may even pray fo 
those that use him spitefully, although in doing so he wi 
be guilty of the most hideous hypocrisy. But can a mar 
with a view to his ultimate interest, in order that he ma 
go to heaven, love his enemies ? 

It appears throughout the Sermon on the Mount th 
there was a class of persons whom Christ regarded wit 
peculiar aversion—the persons who call themselves or 
thing and are another, He describes them by a wo! 
which originally meant an “ actor.” Probably it may } 
Christ’s time have already become current in the sen 
which we give to the word “ hypocrite.” But no doul 
whenever it was used the original sense of the word wi 
distinctly remembered. And in this Sermon, whenev 

1 The vision of the dying Islamite. See Gibbon, cap. li. 


The Christian Republic 99 


Christ denounces any vice, it is with the words, “ Be not 
you like the actors.” In common with all great re- 
formers, Christ felt that honesty in word and deed was 
the fundamental virtue; dishonesty, including affectation, 
self-consciousness, love of stage-effect, the one incurable 
vice. Our thoughts, words, and deeds are to be of a 
piece. For example, if we would pray to God, let us go 
into some inner room where none but God shall see us ; 
‘to pray at the corner of the streets, where the passing 
‘crowd may admire our devotion, is to act a prayer. If 
‘we would keep down the rebellious flesh by fasting, this 
Concerns ourselves only; it is acting to parade before the 
world our self-mortification. And if we would put down 
sin, let us put it down in ourselves first; it is only the 
actor who begins by frowning at it in others. But there 
are subtler forms of hypocrisy, which Christ does not de- 
mounce, probably because they have sprung since out of 
the corruption of a subtler creed. The hypocrite of that 
age wanted simply money or credit with the people. His 
ends were those of the vulgar, though his means were 
ifferent. Christ endeavoured to cure both alike of their 
vulgarity by telling them of other riches and another hap- 
piness laid up in heaven. Some of course would neither 
nderstand nor regard his words, others would understand 
and receive them. But a third class would receive them 
without understanding them, and, instead of being cured 
f their avarice and sensuality, would simply transfer 
them to new objects of desire. Shrewd enough to discern 
Christ’s greatness, instinctively believing what he said to 
de true, they would set out with a triumphant eagerness 
M pursuit of the heavenly riches, and laugh at the short- 
Gao and weak-minded speculator who contented him- 
elf with the easy but insignificant profits of a worldly 
ife. They would practise assiduously the rules by which 
christ said heaven was to be won. They would patiently 
urn the left cheek, indefatigably walk the two miles, they 
vould bless with effusion those who cursed them, and 
yray fluently for those who used them spitefully. To 

ve their enemies, to love anyone, they would certainly 
ind impossible, but the outward signs of love might easily 


: 


i 
















+ 


100 Ecce Homo 


be learnt. And thus there would arise a new class of 
actors, not like those whom Christ denounced, exhibiting 
before an earthly audience and receiving their pay from 
human managers, but hoping to be paid for their per- 
formance out of the incorruptible treasures, and to im- 
pose by their dramatic talent upon their Father in heaven, 

Christ’s meaning, however, is not doubtful. The prin: 
ciple is distinctly laid down. Our thoughts and deeds 

- are to be of a piece. A pious and devout life wil 
undoubtedly win for a man the reverence of the multi 
tude, and yet Christ tells us when we pray we are t 
think of God and not of the credit we may gain. Ant 
so though by loving our neighbour and our enemy w 
shall win heaven, we are not to think of the heaven w 
shall win, we are to think of our neighbour and ou 
enemy. 

Noble-minded men! have often been scandalised b: 
the appearance which Christ’s law is made to wear, as 
it were a system in which all virtue is corrupted by bein 
made mercenary. The same moralists, however, woul 
have been among the first to assert that the only tru 
and lasting happiness is that which is gained by th 
practice of virtue. Christ adds nothing to this except 
promise that those exceptional cases in which virtu 
appears to lose its reward shall prove in the end not t 
be exceptions. By defining virtue to consist in love, t 
brings into prominence its unselfish character; and b 
denouncing at the same time with vehemence all in 

* sincerity and hypocrisy, he sufficiently shows with wh: 
horror he would have regarded any interested beneficen: 
or calculating philanthropy which may usurp the nan 
of love. 

It may, therefore, be affirmed that Christ’s Kingdo 

( is a true brotherhood founded in devotion and se 
\\ sacrifice. Nothing less, indeed, would have satisfied tho 
disciples who had begun to feel the spell of his characte 
A philosophic school or sect may found itself on t! 
prudential instincts of man, may attract empty hearts, a1 
attach them by a loose bond to each other. But a kin 

1 Schiller, for example. 


The Christian Republic IOI 


dom stands on self-devotion, and the hearts of Christ’s 
disciples were not empty. They had not gathered them- 
selves round him to be told how they might avoid the 
evils of life, but to know what they might do for him, 
how they might serve him, how they might prove their 
loyalty to him. It was the art of self-devotion that they 
wished to learn, and he taught it as a master teaches, 
Not sparing words but resting most on deeds; by the . 

tmon on the Mount, but also by the Agony and the 
cifixion. 





CHAPTER XII 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC 


WE discover, then, that Christ’s society resembles other 
political societies in requiring from its members a dis- 
interested devotion and patriotism. But to understand 
its essential nature it is necessary to know, not in what 
respects it resembles other things of the same kind, 
but in what respects it differs from them. We must 
therefore continue our investigation until we discover 
this difference. 

It is one of the most obvious features of the Sermon on 
the Mount that it treats men as standing in the relation 
of brothers to one another under a common Father in 
heaven. Let us consider what is involved in this. 

The earliest condition of mankind of which we have 
any knowledge was one of perpetual war. Homer de- 
scribes a state of society in which a man was safe in the 
possession of his lands and flocks only so long as there 
was strength enough in his right arm to defend them, 
As soon as the primitive man began to grow old and to 
lose his vigour, there was danger that his neighbours 
would drive his cattle and encroach upon his estate. 
Ulysses in the early part of his wanderings, before he 
has lost his fleet and army, lands on the Thracian coast, 
and finds a city. He instantly sacks it and kills all the 
inhabitants. This is not because there has been a quarrel, 
but because there has been no treaty; the normal con- 
dition of men at that time being mutual enmity. Te 
this mutual enmity, however, there is an exception 
established by an imperative law of nature. Persons of 
the same family live in perpetual alliance. This seems te 
have been originally the only tie between man and man, 
the only consideration that could prevent them from 

102 


) 


The Christian Republic 103 


murdering each other. Peleus in his old age will be in 
the greatest danger if he is deprived of Achilles, and the 
very children will persecute the child Astyanax after his 
father’s death. Woe to the orphan, and woe to the old 
man who has not surrounded himself with children! 
They are the only arrows with which his quiver can be 
filled, the only defenders whom he can trust to speak 
‘with his enemies in the gate. 

Thus in the earliest condition of things there was only 
one kind of community. The primitive man had no 
obligations, no duties, to any except his parents, his 
brothers, and his parents’ brothers and their families. 
When he met with a man unrelated to him he would 
without hesitation take his life and his property. But the 
life and property of a relation were sacred, and the Greeks 
held that there were certain supernatural powers called 
Erinyes, who vindicated the rights of relatives. This 
‘sense of relationship being natural and universal and ex- 
‘tending even to the brute creation, we cannot imagine a 
time when the family with its rights and obligations did 
Mot exist. But the family is a community which con- 
stantly expands until it loses itself in a more comprehen- 
sive one. It becomes a clan, the members of which may 
in many cases be strangers to each other, while they are, 
notwithstanding, bound together by the sacred tie of 
Telationship. Again, in primitive times, when men had 
little power of verifying facts or weighing evidence, 
‘relationship was often supposed to exist between persons 
who were really of different stocks. Any resemblance 
was supposed to furnish a proof of relationship, and so 
those who spoke the same language were presumed to be 
descended from a common ancestor. In this way the 
family passed ultimately into the nation, and political 
‘Constitutions and codes of law came to bind men together, 
grounded all alike on the supposition, true or false, that 
they were relations by blood. When states had once 
been founded and began to flourish, men began to associate 
with each other more freely; other grounds of obligation 
besides blood-relationship were gradually admitted, and 
finally Rome, binding together in the unity of common 








i 


. 


q 
104 Ecce\H omo ' 

‘ 
subjection a number of tribes strange to each other, gave 
a basis of fact and law to universal morality. But in 
states which had been isolated, and had mixed little with 
foreigners either by conquest or by trade, the original 
tradition did not die out, and men continued to say and 
to think that they owed obligations only to those of the 
same blood. This was especially true of the Jews, the 
most isolated of all ancient nations. Their common 
descent from Abraham was always present to their minds, 
and was the tie which bound them together. A sense of 
obligation they expressed by the formula, “ He also is a 
child of Abraham ”; their very religion was a worship paid 
to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Christ 
himself sometimes adopted the same style, as when he 
reproved the vice of selfishness by representing Dives as 
repudiated by Abraham, and Lazarus welcomed to his 
bosom in the invisible world. 

It was, therefore, no novelty when, in the Sermon on 
the Mount, Christ described those who entered the King- 
dom of God as standing in the relation of brothers to one 
another. In doing so he only used the ordinary language 
of what may be called ethnic morality. The novelty lies 
here that he does not ground the mutual obligations of 
men upon a common descent from Abraham, but upon 4 
common descent from God. 

It is not difficult to see what follows from this change 
of style. By substituting the Father in Heaven for father 
Abraham, Christ made morality universal. This phrase, 
which places not a certain number of men, but all men, 
in the relation of brotherhood to each other, destroys at 
once the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile, Greek 
and barbarian, German and Welsh, white man and Negro, 
or under whatever names the families of the earth have 
justified and legalised the savage instinct of antipathy. It 
is not to be imagined that the thought was new or original ; 
Christ was no theorist or philosopher, but a legislator. 
The thought had existed in the mind of Socrates, when 
he called himself a citizen of the world; it had become a 
commonplace of the Stoic philosophy; it was taken up 
by Roman jurists, and worked into the imperial legislation, 


The Christian Republic 105 


But to work it into the hearts and consciences of men 
required a much higher and rarer power, the power of a 
Tuler, not of a philosopher. It may have been the thought 
of a Julianus or a Papinianus that all the Roman world 
had a right to Roman citizenship; but it was the Czsar, 
Antoninus Caracalla, who gave the right; and, in like 
manner, what a Socrates and a Zeno and many Hebrew 
prophets had claimed for men, was given to them by this 
Edict from the Mount. 

The first law, then, of the Kingdom of God, is that all 
men, however divided from each other by blood or 
language, have certain mutual duties arising out of their * 
common relation to God. It may, however, be urged 
that this law was superfluous. Without denying the 
= that at an earlier time nations had regarded éach 





ther as natural enemies, without maintaining that the 
hilosophic doctrine of a unity in the human race had had 
a practical influence, it may still be urged that the 
oman Empire had already realised that unity which 
hilosophers had imagined and to which Christ now gives 
sanction. By the Roman conquests a number of 
different nations had been brought together and united 
ander a common government. In the period immediately 
succeeding their subjugation they had, no doubt, been 
reated by their conquerors with insolent oppression. It 
was plain that proconsuls and propretors had little sense 
af duty in regard to their subjects. The principal object 
af their government was to preserve to the state its ac- 
quisition, and the secondary object to reap some personal 

vantage from it. But time had produced a great im- 
ovement. The sense of duty, which at first was want- 
ng, had been awakened. A morality not founded on 
jlood-relation had certainly come into existence. The 
oman citizenship had been thrown open to nations 
vhich were not of Roman blood. A hundred years 
efore the Sermon on the Mount was delivered Cicero 
iad roused public indignation against an unjust and 
apacious propretor. Since that time foreigners had 
en admitted by the Roman state to the highest civic 
ionours. And in the centuries that followed, the process 


106 Ecce Homo | 


by which nations were being fused into one universal 
society went steadily forward without any help from 
Christian maxims. So signally, so much more than in 
later and Christian ages, were national distinctions ob- 
literated under the Empire, that men of all nations and 
languages competed freely under the same political 
system for the highest honours of the state and of litera- 
ture. The good Aurelius and the great Trajan were 
Spaniards. So were Seneca and Martial. Severus was 
an African. The leading jurists were of Oriental ex- 
traction. 

All this is true. A number of nations which had before 
waged incessant war with one another had been forced 
into a sort of unity. What court-poets call a golden age 
had set in. Round the whole shore of the Mediterranean 
Sea, and northward to the Danube and beyond the British 
Channel, national antipathies had been suppressed, and 
war had ceased, while the lives of men were regulated by 
an admirable code of laws. Yet, except to court-poets 
this age did not seem golden to those who lived in it. On 
the contrary, they said it was something worse than ar 
iron age; there was no metal from which they could name 
it. Never did men live under such a crushing sense 0: 
degradation, never did they look back with more bitte! 
regret, never were the vices that spring out of despair st 
rife, never was sensuality cultivated more methodically 
never did poetry curdle so readily into satire, never wai 
genius so much soured by cynicism, and never wa 
calumny so abundant or so gross or so easily believed 
If morality depended on laws, or happiness could b 
measured by comfort, this would have been the mos 
glorious era in the past history of mankind. It was i 
fact one of the meanest and foulest, because a tone 0 
spirit is necessary to morality, and self-respect is needfu 
to happiness. 

Ancient morality, as it has been already remarked, wa 
essentially national and exclusive. Its creed was that 
man is born not for himself, but for his parents, hi 
family, and the state. The state was surrounded b 
others with which, unless some treaty had been concludec 


The Christian Republic 107 


it was at war. To do as much good as possible to one’s 
own state, and as much harm as possible to all other 
‘States, was therefore the whole duty of a man. Those 
who performed this duty manfully might look for the 
protection of the gods who lived in temples built for 
them within the walls of the city, and who were feasted 
and enriched with the spoils of other nations. Now this 
whole scheme of morality had been overturned by the 
Roman conquests. For they had destroyed the very 
principle of nationality both among conquerors and con- 
quered. Among the conquered nations, for their gods 
had left them, and their freedom, which, as they said 
themselves, was half their virtue, and their isolation, 
which was the other half, were taken away. Among the 
Romans themselves, for they had been compelled to raise 
the conquered to their own level, and they knew not 
what to make of their new condition when their own 
country no longer required to be defended or enriched, 
and there were scarcely any more foreign countries to 
be invaded. Yet, their poets thought, they might at 
least have occupied themselves with conquering these. 
“Shame on you!” says Lucan, “ You turned your arms 
against each other, when you might have been sacking 
Babylon.” 

__ The nations were thus forced into a unity for which 
they were not prepared. Ethnic morality, the light under 
which their fathers had lived, which had given them 
self-respect, strength in hardships, and a sense of satis- 
faction in the hour of death, was now useless, and uni- 
versal morality was a thing unknown, or at least untried. 
On this new path they were cheered by no great memories, 
guided by no acknowledged rules. When they treated a 
foreigner as a fellow-citizen, the spirits of their fathers 
seemed to reproach them, and they derived but cold com- 
fort from the approval of Stoic philosophers. Men did 
what was right with the feeling that they were doing 
wrong. The most mortal evil that can befall mankind 
had befallen them—conscience took the wrong side. 

_ It was not a repetition of the Stoic maxim in more 
emphatic terms that purified the human conscience. It 


€ 


] 
108 Ecce Homo ; 


was the personality of Christ exciting a veneration and 
worship which effaced in the minds of his followers their 
hereditary and habitual worships. No theory, says a 
Greek poet, will throw down ancestral traditions. This 
is true; but they can be overthrown by a passionate 
personal devotion. Father Abraham, seceding from his 
Chaldean community in obedience to a divine Call, and 
thus dividing Jew from Gentile as strongly as he united 
Jew with Jew, would have resisted many generations of 
Rabbinical teachers. Father Aineas bearing from the 
flames of Troy the venerated symbols of Roman unity 
and isolation would have been too strong for the Stoi 
philosophy. Both alike faded like phantoms, both alike 
were superannuated, the moment the heart is touched 
And in order that those who worshipped his persor 
might not forget his fundamental law, Christ assumed ¢ 
title expressing the universality of his dominion, a 
kings have often borne titles taken from the nations the} 
have added to the empire, and called himself the Son o 
Man. 

How opportune this Edict of Comprehension was wi 
may learn by considering for a moment the writings o 
Juvenal. This poet reflects the deep dissatisfaction, th 
bitter sense of degeneracy and degradation, which charac 
terised his age. Now what is the ground of his despon 
dency? what provokes the savage indignation, whic 
made him a satirist? If we examine, we shall find tha 
it is one and the same grievance which inspires almos 
every fierce tirade, namely, the mixture of races. Lif 
seems to him not worth having when the Roman canno 
walk the Via Sacra unelbowed by Greeks and Syrians 
All distinctions, he complains, are lost; the Roma 
worships the Egyptian monster-deities whom his ow 
national gods vanquished at Actium; Orontes emptie 
itself into Tiber; it is time for a Roman to turn his bac 
on his own city when it has become a thing of no accour 
that his infancy breathed the air of Aventine and was fe 
upon the Sabine berry. Now this very writer is a Stoi 
familiar of necessity with the speculations which made th 
wise and good of all nations citizens alike in the city 


: . The Christian Republic 109 


God. So little power had any such philosophic theory 
to supply the place of a morality founded on usage, on 
filial reverence, on great and dear examples. Yet that 
theory, if it had presented itself to him, not as an ambi- 
tious speculation of philosophers, but as a sober account 
of an actual fact, would have dried up the source of his 
satire. He would not have regretted the downfall of 
national distinctions, if they had been abolished by an 
authority equal in his mind to that which had created 
them. To minds perplexed like his it was, therefore, the 
beginning of a new life and hope when a new Romulus 
gathered into a new republic the chaos of nations, The 
city of God, of which the Stoics doubtfully and feebly 
spoke, was now set up before the eyes of men. It was no 
insubstantial city, such as we fancy in the clouds, no in- 
visible pattern such as Plato thought might be laid up in 
heaven, but a visible corporation whose members met 
together to eat bread and drink wine, and into which they 
were initiated by bodily immersion in water. Here the 
Gentile met the Jew whom he had been accustomed to 
regard as an enemy of the human race; the Roman met 
the lying Greek sophist, the Syrian slave the gladiator 
born beside the Danube. In brotherhood they met, the 
natural birth and kindred of each forgotten, the baptism 
alone remembered in which they had been born again to 
God and to each other. 

_ The mention of slaves and gladiators reminds us that 
ethnic morality had, besides putting discord between 
states, created certain positive institutions. As under 
that system obligations subsisted only between blood- 
relations, and each tribe might without provocation or 
pretext attack and slaughter any foreign community, 
so had it the right of reducing foreigners to slavery. 
Whether death or slavery should be inflicted on the con- 
quered enemy was, in fact, not a question of morality or 
mercy, but simply of calculation. In either case the 
Captive was deprived of life so far as life is a valuable or 
desirable possession; if he was allowed to exist, it was 
not for his own sake, but as a property more or less 
valuable to his master. Not that the lot of the slave was 


IIO Ecce Homo 










always or inevitably miserable; natural kindness, whi 
was not killed but only partially paralysed by ethni 
morality, and which was always essentially Christi 
might indefinitely and in an indefinite number of instan 
mitigate the bitterness of his lot; but theoretically he 
no more claim to consideration or care at the hand of 
master, no more right to happiness, than if he had be 
slain at the moment of his capture. Everywhere th 
throughout the Roman world there was a class of outcas 
whom it was supposed lawful to treat with heartless cruel 
such as would have been held unlawful if the objects of it 
had been fellow-citizens. The ground on which this right 
had originally been founded was that the class in question 
consisted either of prisoners taken in war, or of the de 
scendants of such prisoners; and that as they were pro- 
tected by no treaties, their lives and fortunes were at the 
disposal of their captors, or of others to whom the rights 
of the captor had passed by purchase. 

Now although Christ never, so far as we know, had 
occasion to pronounce judgment on the question of 
slavery, yet we do not require the testimony of his earliest 
followers (declaring that in Christ Jesus there is neither 
bond nor free) to assure us that, considered in this sense, 
slavery could not be reconciled with his law. The Edict 
of Comprehension conferred citizenship upon the whole 
outcast class. Under it, whatever law of mutual help 
and consideration had obtained between citizen and 
citizen, began to obtain between the citizen and his slaves. 
The words “ foreign ”’ and “ barbarous ”’ lost their meaning, 
all nations and tribes were gathered within the pomeerium 
of the city of God; and on the baptised earth the Rhine 
and the Thames became as Jordan, and every suller 
desert-girdled settlement of German savages as sacred as 
Jerusalem. 

Therefore it is that St. Paul, writing to Philemon, ex- 
horts him to receiye back Onesimus “no longer as a servant 
but as a brother beloved.” It may, however, surprise us 
that he does not exhort Philemon to emancipate him 
But this does not seem to occur to the apostle; and if 
has been made matter of complaint against the Christiar 


The Christian Republic II! 


perch, that, though it announced principle fundament- 
ally irreconcilable with slavery, it never pronounced the 
institution itself unlawful. Nor can it be denied that, 
instead of telling the slave that he was wronged, and ex- 
horting him in the name of human nature, degraded in 
his person, to take the first opportunity of shaking off 
the yoke, the first Christian teachers exhorted him to 
obedience, and declared it particularly meritorious to be 
submissive to a cruel and unreasonable master, while, on 
the other hand, they exhorted the masters not to set their 
slaves free, but simply to treat them well. 

_ The explanation of this is, that under the name of 
slavery two essentially different institutions were con- 
founded, only one of which was irreconcilable with Chris- 
lian principle. Slavery may mean the degradation of a 
person into a thing, the condition of a man who has no 
claims upon his fellow-men. This is essentially monstrous, 
and has always been condemned by Christianity. But 
t may mean merely a condition of dependence, differing 
rom that of a free servant only ‘in its being compulsory, 
and in the rights of the master being transferable by pur- 
chase. The latter kind of slavery does 

he theory of ethnic morality; it does 
lave has rights or claims upon his masters. it depends 
ipon the assumption of a natural inferiority in the slave 
ncapacitating him for judging of his own rights or for 
iving in happiness except under guardianship or restraint. 
Now, as Christianity, in asserting the unity of the human 
ace, and their equality in the sight of God and Christ, 
lid not declare war upon the social system which arranges 
nen according to “ degree, priority, and place,” and binds 
hem together by ties of loyalty and obedience, as it 
lid not deny, but strongly confirmed, the authority of 
he father over the child and the husband over the 
vife, an authority grounded on a similar assumption 
f a natural inferiority and incapacity for liberty in the 
vorman and child, it acted consistently in withholding 
iberty from the slave while it gave him citizenship. As 
t often happens that a usage introduced for one reason is 
ifterwards retained for another, so had slavery, originally 






112 Ecce Homo ‘ 

p 
the most savage abuse of ethnic morality, come to be 
differently understood and differently defended. The 
servile condition has a natural tendency to degrade humar 
nature; of the slaves of antiquity a large proportion be 
longed originally to the lowest and rudest nations; 
from these two causes it was a patent and undeniable fact 
that the slave population was in an incalculable degret 
inferior to the free. It might reasonably be considerec 
rebellion against an ordinance of nature to give freedom 
to those who appeared so little fit for it; and if it seem: 
to us a false and cruel argument to turn the consequenct 
of slavery into a justification of it, and to pronounce thi 
slave naturally incapable of liberty because he had beet 
artificially incapacitated for it, yet we must remembe 
that the social speculations of antiquity were seldom 
dictated by philanthropy, and we must not expect th 
refined tenderness of adult Christianity from its earlies 
developments. 

False and cruel to a certain extent the argument was 
but if the earliest Christian teachers had rejected i 
absolutely, and inferred from their Master’s Law o 
Comprehension that all men are not only to be respecte 
alike, but to be treated in the same manner, put in posses 
sion of the same privileges, directed to seek happines 
in the same pursuits, they would have run into the oppe 
site extreme. Christ declares all men alike to be th 
sons of God, and the least of mankind he adopts as | 
brother. By doing so he makes all mankind equal t 
this extent, that the interests and the happiness of a 
members of the race are declared to be of equal im 
portance. But he does not declare them to be equall 
gifted. Each individual is equally entitled to whateve 
dignity he is capable of supporting; but the early Church 
at least, was in possession of no proof that all men ar 
equally capable of sustaining the dignity of a free cor 
dition. If this discovery has been made since, there wa 
at that time nothing that could suggest it. Dependence 
and subjection were then regarded as the natural conditio 
of women; the son under the Roman Law was literall 
his father’s slave, incapable of owning a penny of person: 


: The Christian Republic 113 


property, even though he might have held the highest 
honours of the state. And if such appeared to the 
Roman jurists to be a natural ordinance, even when there 
was no visible inferiority between the father and the son 
who was thus enslaved to him, who could question that 
the slave population, visibly characterised by all the faults, 
vices, and deficiencies that make men unfit for freedom, 
were intended by nature to live under the control of 
those whom she had made wise and intelligent? 
In the Universal Republic therefore, while in one sense 
there were no slaves, in another sense slavery was ad- 
mitted. The position given to the outcast class was what 
we may call citizenship without emancipation. Their wel- 
fare was regarded as not less important than that of the 
most exalted. They were Christ’s brothers, and he had 
pronounced the solemn sentence, ‘“‘ Whoso offendeth one 
of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for 
im that a mill-stone should be hanged round his neck, 
and that he should be cast into the depths of the sea.” 
This sentence contained the abolition of all the horrible 
pe of ancient slavery, the tortures of the ergastulum, 
he gladiatorial show. But, notwithstanding, the slave 
was left under a control which might be harsh and rigorous, 
if harshness and rigour appear necessary, because it was 
believed that men were called to different offices in life, 
and that while it was the glory and dignity of some to feel 
nothing between themselves and God, to others it was 
given only to see God reflected in wiser and nobler spirits 
than themselves. 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF 


Our investigation has led us to three conclusions r 
specting Christ’s legislation:—/1, that he does not direc 
us to adopt a private or isolated rule of life, but t 
occupy ourselves with the affairs of the society; 2, tha’ 
he expects us to merge our private interests absolutely i 
those of this society; 3, that this society is not exclusive 
but catholic or universal—that is, that all mankind havi 
a right to admission to it.) Or we should rather say re 
admission, for Christ does not regard the society as new 
but rather as one which had subsisted from the beginnin; 
in the Maker’s plan, but had been broken up through th 
jealousies and narrowness of men. For this reason, thoug! 
baptism is the essential condition of membership, ye 
those who refuse baptism are not to be treated as th 
foreigner would be treated under the system of ethni 
morality, but to be pitied as fellow-citizens who madly re 
fuse to take up their birthright, to be abandoned only afte 
their perverseness has shown itself incorrigible, and eve 
then not to be punished, but left to the judgment of Got 
A universal society, then, being founded, and a li 
strictly social and civic being enjoined upon its member 
by what rule is this social life to be guided? How ai 
Christians to behave towards each other? This questic 
must be carefully separated from others which natural 
connect themselves with it. We are not now concerne 
with the constitution of the society, its system of magi 
trates and public assemblies—questions which in fa 
Christ left entirely to the decision of the society itsel 
Nor do we here consider the injunctions which he la 
upon them, so to speak, as a politician—for examp! 
concerning the way in which they were to compo 
114 | 


cd 


The Christian a Law to Himself 115 


hemselves towards the governments of the earth, or 
vhat they were to do in times of persecution. Nor are 
ve concerned at present with the theology of the society, 
ior with its relation to God and Christ. When, however, 
ve have gone through the recorded discourses and sayings 
if Christ, and eliminated everything in them referring to 
heology, or the occasional duties of the society, or arising 
jut of the polemic in which Christ occasionally engaged 
yith the Jewish doctors, we may be surprised to find how 
mall is the residue which contains his system of morality. 
“he truth is that he did not leave a code of morals in the 
rdinary sense of the word—that is, an enumeration of 
ctions prescribed and prohibited. Two or three pro- 
ibitions, two or three commands, he is indeed recorded to 
lave delivered, but on the greater number of questions 
m which men require moral guidance he has left no 
lirection whatever. 

: Are we then, after being brought together into a uni- 
ersal society, left without a rule by which to guide our 
atercourse in this society? Not so; we are to consider 
yhat is the origin of laws in human communities. They 
rise from a certain instinct in human nature, which it is 
jot necessary here to analyse, but which supports itself 
y a constant struggle against other anarchic and lawless 
astincts, and which is so far the same in all men that all 
he systems of law which have ever appeared among men 
re, in certain grand features, alike. This we may call the 
aw-making power in men. Now anyone set to organise 
ew community, if he had it in his power either to deliver 
n elaborate and minute code of rules to the community, 
r to increase indefinitely the law-making power in each 
rember of it, would certainly without hesitation choose 
he latter course. For, not to speak of the trouble that 
yould be saved both in compiling the code at first and in 
emodelling it as new circumstances demanded new pro- 
isions, the morality of the citizens would be of a much 
igher and more vital kind if they could be made, as it 
fere, a law to themselves, and could always hear, in the 
inguage of Hebrew poetry, a voice behind them saying, 
This is the way, walk ye in it.” 





116 Ecce Homo 


Now this was what Christ undertook todo. Instead 
giving laws to his Society, he would give to every mem 
of it a power of making laws for himself. He frequen’ 
repeated that to make the fruit of a tree good you m 
put the tree into a healthy state, and, slightly altering 
illustration, that fruit can only be expected from a 
tree, not from a thistle or thorn. The meaning of th 
plainly is that a man’s actions result from the state of hi 
mind; that if that is healthy they will be right, and 
not, they will be wrong. Such language was new in th 
mouth of a legislator, but not at all new in itself. It we 
an adoption of the style of philosophy. Philosophers ha 
always made it their study to bring their minds into’ 
healthy condition, “ frui emendato animo.” When, hoy 
ever, we enquire what Christ considered a healthy col 
dition of the mind to be, we do not find him in agreemet 
with philosophers. The law-making power of whit 
mention has been made, which, raised to predominance 
issues in an unerring tact or instinct of right action, wi 
differently conceived by him and by them. They placed 
in reason, and regarded passion as the antagonistic powi 
which must be controlled and coerced by it. Christ al: 
considers it necessary to control the passions, but he plac 
them under the dominion not of reason but of a new ar 
more powerful passion. The healthy mind of the phil 
sophers is in a composed, tranquil, and impartial state; 1 
healthy mind of Christ is in an elevated and enthusiast 
state. Both are exempt from perturbation and unsteac 
ness, but the one by being immovably fixed, the oth 
by being always powerfully attracted in one direction. 

This is collected from the following facts. Christ w 
once asked to pronounce which commandment in the la 
was the greatest. He answered by quoting a senten 
from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which devoted love’ 
God and man is solemnly enjoined upon the Israelite, at 
by declaring that upon this commandment the whe 
Mosaic and prophetic legislation depended. In oth 
words, he declared an ardent, passionate, or devoted sta 
of mind to be the root of virtue. Again, he directed o 
who declared that he had kept all the commandmen 


The Christian a Law to Himself 117 


: 
nd asked what remained for him to do, if he would be 
erfect, to sell all his goods and give them to the poor, 
nd devote himself to the kingdom of God. What does 
ris imply but that the morality which is sound must be 
o mere self-restraint, no mechanical movement within 
escribed rules, no mere punctiliousness, but ardent and 
ctive, exceeding duty and outstripping requirement? 
le taught the same doctrine in a striking form when he 
" his followers exhibit their virtue conspicuously, so 
at all might see it and none might mistake it. They 
ere to be, he said, a city set on a hill, a candle set on 
candlestick and lighting the whole room, salt with 
strong taste in it. These exhortations are peculiarly 
riking, because no teacher has ever insisted more 
rongly than Christ on the unobtrusive character of true 
irtue. We are not, he says, to sound a trumpet before 
5; if we would pray we are to go into a closet and shut 
e door behind us; we are to do good by stealth; our 
ft hand is not to know what our right hand does. These 
wo sets of injunctions appear, as is often the case in the 
yany-sided wisdom of Christ, to be in direct contradiction 
» each other. But they are not really so; if taken 
ygether there results from them the following perfectly 
ear and consistent doctrine: True goodness does not 


udy to attract attention; nevertheless, wherever it ~ 


ppears, such is the warmth, fire, and energy inherent ' 
| it, that it does and must attract attention. And so 
rongly does Christ feel this, that he solemnly declares 
1e virtue which does not make itself felt and recognised 
) be worth nothing. If the very salt have lost its taste, 
hat remains? it is good for nothing but to be thrown 
way and trodden under foot. 

All other faults or deficiencies he could tolerate, but 
e could have neither part nor lot with men destitute of 
ithusiasm. He thought it a bad, almost a fatal sign, in 
ne who proposed to become a disciple that he asked 
ave first to bid farewell to his relations. Another asked 
ermission to bury his father, and was advised to let the 
ead (that is, those whose hearts were not animated by 
ny strong passion or impulse) bury their dead. And once 





















118 Ecce Homo 


when it seemed that the magic of his presence and wor 
would draw his entire audience into the number of h 
followers, alarmed lest he should find himself surround 
by half-hearted or superficial and merely excitable 2 
herents, he turned suddenly upon the crowd, and w 
one of those startling expressions which he seldom, ¢ 
yet like all great reformers sometimes, employed, declare 
that he could receive no man who did not hate his fath 
and mother and his own life. 

These passages will help us to understand the allegory 
of the strong man armed keeping secure possession of hi 
palace until he is expelled by a stronger than himself 
The strong man armed is the anarchic passions of humai 
nature, against which the law-making power contend: 
Nothing can control them, says Christ, but a stronge 
passion still. And he goes on to explain that an empt 
condition of mind, a quiescence or temporary absence 
the anarchic passion, is a hollow and dangerous stat 
The demon may leave his abode for a time, but he fin 
no sustenance abroad, and so at last back he comes hung 
and brings congenial guests with him. 

It was fully understood in the early Church that 
enthusiastic or elevated condition of mind was the dis 
tinctive and essential mark of a Christian. St. Pau 
having asked some converts whether they had receive 
this divine inspiration since their conversion, and recei 
for answer that they had not heard there was any suc 
divine inspiration abroad, demanded in amazement wha 
then they had been baptised into. i 

Before we investigate the nature of the enthusiasm 0 
divine inspiration which Christ proposed to kindle in th 
minds of his disciples, let us consider what is involved i 
the fact that he made morality dependent upon such ¢ 
enthusiasm, and not upon any activity of the reasonin 
power. It is the essence of morality to place a restrair 
upon our natural desires in such a manner that in certak 
cases we refrain from doing that which we have a natura 
desire to do, or force ourselves to do that to which we fee 
a repugnance. Now, he who refrains from gratifying : 
wish on some ground of reason, at the same time feels thi 


The Christian 2a Law to Himself 119 


ish as strongly as if he gratified it. The object seems 
0 him desirable, he cannot think of it without wishing 
or it; he can, indeed, force his mind not to dwell upon 
the object of desire, but so long as the mind dwells upon 
t so long it desires it. On the other hand, when a 
tronger passion controls a weaker, the weaker altogether 
— to be felt. For example, let us suppose two men, 
ne of whom has learnt and believes that he owes fidelity 
so his country, but has no ardour of patriotism, and the 
Dther an enthusiastic patriot. Suppose a bribe offered to 
these two men to betray their country. Neither will take 
the bribe. But the former, if we suppose the bribe large 
enough, will feel his fingers itch as he handles the gold; 
his mind will run upon the advantages it would bring him, 

e things he might buy, the life he might lead, if he had 
a money; he will find it prudent to divert his mind 
from the subject, to plunge desperately into occupations 
hich may absorb him until the time of temptation has 
a The other will have no such feelings; the gold 
will not make his fingers itch with desire, but perhaps 
ather seem to scorch them; he will not picture to him- 
self happiness or pleasure as a consequence of taking it, 
but, on the contrary, insupportable degradation and 
a ; his mind will need no distraction, it will be per- 
ectly at ease however long the period of temptation may 
continue. 
The difference between the men is briefly this, that the 
one has his anarchic or lower desires under control, the 
other feels no such desires; the one, so far as he is vir- 
tuous, is incapable of crime, the other, so far as he is 
virtuous, is incapable of temptation. 
_ Now, as Christ demands virtue of the latter or enthu- 
siastic kind, we shall be prepared to find that he pro- 
hibits evil desires as well as wrong acts. Accordingly, 
it is one of the most remarkable features of his moral 
teaching that he does not command us to regulate or 
control our unlawful desires, but pronounces it unlawful 
to have such desires at all. A considerable part of the 
Sermon on the Mount is devoted to the exposition of this 
doctrine. Christ quotes several prohibitions from the 





120 Ecce Homo 


Mosaic law, and proceeds to declare the desire from which 
each prohibited act springs equally culpable with the 
itself. This is at first sight perplexing, because the desire 
out of which an unlawful act springs is often or generally 
a mere natural appetite which in itself is perfectly inno- 
cént. The truth is, that Christ requires that such natural 
appetite, when the gratification of it would be unlawful, 
be not merely left ungratified, but altogether destroyed, 
and a feeling of aversion substituted for it by the enthu- 
siasm of virtue within the soul. 

This higher form of goodness, though of course it had 
existed among the heathen nations, yet had never among 
them been sufficiently distinguished from the lower to 
receive a separate name. The earliest Christians, like the 
Christians of later times, felt a natural repugnance to 
describe the ardent enthusiastic goodness at which they 
aimed by the name of virtue. This name suited exactly 
the kind of goodness which Christ expressly commanded 
them to rise above. They therefore adopted another. 
Regarding the ardour they felt as an express inspiration 
or spiritual presence of God within them, they borrowed 
from the language of religious worship a word for which 
our equivalent is “‘ holy ”; and the inspiring power they 
consistently called the Spirit of Holiness or the Holy 
Spirit. Accordingly, while a virtuous man is one who 
controls and coerces the anarchic passions within him so 
as to conform his actions to law, a holy man is one in 
whom a passionate enthusiasm absorbs and annuls the 
anarchic passions altogether, so that no internal struggle 
takes place, and the lawful action is that which presents 
itself first and seems the one most natural and most easy 
to be done. 

But now, of what nature is the enthusiasm Christ 
requires? We have seen that a particular passion may 
raise a man above a particular sin. The enthusiastic 
patriot is incapable of treason. He who passionately loves 
one woman may be made by that love incapable of a 
licentious thought; and an elevated self-love may make 
it impossible for a man to lie. But these passions are 
partial in their operation. The patriot, incapable of 


The Christian a Law to Himself 121 


ipablic treason, may be capable of private treachery. The 
chaste man may be a traitor. The honest man may be 
cruel. What is the passion, if such a passion there be, 
which can lift a man clean out of all sin whatever? 

As it has been shown that Christ founded a society the 

peculiarity of which is that it was intended to include the 
whole human race, it may occur to us that the esprit de 
corps which would naturally spring up in such a society 
may be the passion we seek. It would be a passion of 
the same nature as patriotism, but without its exclusive- 
ness. For the patriot, though incapable of injuring his 
own country, is not less but perhaps more capable of 
being unjust or treacherous towards foreign nations, while 
the Christian patriot, whose country is the world, will, it 
May be supposed, be equally incapable of wrong-doing 
towards all alike. 
_ But it must be remembered that an enthusiastic attach- 
Ment to a state or a community is very different from an 
attachment to the members of that community. The 
patriot, it has just been said, is not by any means above 
the temptation to private injustice or treachery, nor will 
he become more so when his country is the world. An 
example was given in the first French Revolution of the 
operation of this passion of universal patriotism. It was 
in the cause not so much of France as of universal man 
that the revolutionary party agitated and fought, and they 
displayed a disregard of private rights and individual 
happiness quite as catholic as their philanthropy. Uni- 
versal patriotism, taken by itself, is not Christianity but 
Jacobinism. 

The all-purifying passion must, it is plain, be a passion 
for individuals. Let us imagine, then, a love for every 
human being. This answers the conditions of the prob- 
lem to this extent, that he who loves everybody will of 
course willingly injure nobody, that is, will not commit 
sin. And if, leaving conjecture, we turn again to Christ’s 
discourses, we find him, as it appears, mentioning this 
very passion as the essence of all legislation, or as what 
we called above the law-making power in man. The 
great commandment of the law, he says, is to love God 








122 Ecce Homo 


with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself, an 
the maxim for practice corresponding to this law of feel 
‘ing is, ‘‘ Do unto others as you would that they should d 
to you.” 
Here then, it appears, is our panacea for all diseases o 
the soul; here is that passion which once conceived 1 
the breast is to make laws superfluous, to redeem o 
nature, to make “ our days bright and serene, love bei 
an unerring light and joy its own security.” We are to 
love every human being alike. The discovery, it cannot 
be concealed, seems rather an empty one. We will not 
at present enquire where are the agencies which are to 
excite in us so strange a passion: men do conceive strange 
attachments; they learn, for example, to love their 
country, though it seems surprising that such an ab- 
straction should excite so much interest. But is not the 
feeling now enjoined upon us one plainly impossible 
because self-contradictory? There exist men of opposite 
qualities. Love is a name we give to a feeling aroused 
in us by certain qualities, and hatred is the feeling aroused 
by qualities of the opposite kind. How then is it possible 
to love at the same time persons of opposite qualities? 
Obvious and forcible as this objection seems, there is 
something in us which rebels against it as soon as it is 
stated. Manifest as it may seem that we can only love 
what is lovely, and that what is hateful must, in the nature 
of things, be hated, we are yet aware that practically our 
feelings towards our fellow-creatures are more complex. 
It is not merely that almost all men have qualities we can 
love even when the hateful qualities preponderate, nor 
merely that we are conscious how our self-interest makes 
many things hateful to us which are not hateful in them- 
selves and would not be so to us if our self-love were 
diminished or at rest, but even in the extreme case, when 
our hatred seems most just and necessary, when monsters 
appear in the form of man whose crimes strike us with 
horror, even for such we sometimes detect in ourselves a 
feeling opposite to hatred. When they fall into calamity 
and death, a feeling of awe, aye, of pity, mixes with our 
rejoicing. Even in primitive times, when men’s feelings 


. 


: The Christian a Law to Himself 123 


u 


: towards each other were for the most part simple and clear, 
pen hatred was unmixed and had not begun to lose its 

“raven gloss ” we find these pangs of tenderness. When 
‘the housekeeper Euryclea was admitted by Ulysses into 
the hall where the oppressors of the house lay slaughtered, 
her first impulse, woman though she was—such was the 
fierceness of the time—was to utter a shout of triumph. 
‘But the hero stopped her and said, “ Rejoice in silence, 
woman, and restrain thyself, and utter no shout: it is 
‘not right to triumph over slaughtered men.’ 

If we consider these singular relentings, the thoughts 
with which they are accompanied, and the words in which 
they most naturally express themselves, we shall find that 
it is the ideal of man in each man which calls them forth. 
Bq we think of the fallen criminal or tyrant we say, 
“He too was once an innocent child,” or “ Who knows 
what he might have been had circumstances been more 
favourable or temptation less!”’ In thoughts like these 
we betray that there is a third kind of love which we may 
bear to our fellow-creatures, and which is neither that 
love of the whole race which has been called above 
Jacobinism, nor that independent love of each individual 
which appears impossible when we consider that different 
individuals exhibit opposite qualities. This third feeling 
is the love not of the race nor of the individual, but of the 
Tace in the individual; it is the love not of all men nor 
yet of every man, but of the man in every man. 

This ought not to be regarded as a mere Platonic dream. 
Though it finds expression most easily and naturally in 
Platonic language, it is in reality one of the most hack- 
theyed and familiar of truths. There is a fellow-feeling, 
a yearning of kindness towards a human being as such, 
which is not dependent upon the character of the par- 
ticular human being who excites it, but rises before that 
character displays itself, and does not at once or altogether 
subside when it exhibits itself as unamiable. We save a 
man from drowning whether he is amiable or the contrary, 
and we should consider it right to do so even though we 
knew him to be a very great criminal, simply because he 
isaman. By examples like this we may discover that a 








124 Ecce Homo 


love for humanity as such exists, and that it is a natural 
passion which would be universal if special causes did no 
extinguish it in special cases, but like all other h 
passions, it may be indefinitely increased and purified 
training and by extraordinary agencies that may be 
brought to bear upon it. Now this was the passion upon 
which Christ seized, and treating it as the law-making 
power or root of morality in human nature, trained and 
developed it into that Christian spirit which received the 
new name of aya. 

The objection is then removed which represents Christ’s 
rule of universal love as impracticable because different 
men may exhibit opposite qualities, for it is shown that 
there is a kind of love which may be felt for unamiable 
persons. And though it must be admitted that there is 
an extreme degree of unamiability which quenches this 
love in us, yet it is conceivable that when the passion has 
been cultivated and strengthened by the means which 
Christ may employ, it may become a passion in the 
strictest sense all-embracing. What these means were, 
and what character the passion assumes in its full develop- 
ment, it is now necessary to consider. 








CHAPTER XIV 


THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY 


I 





THE first method of training this passion which Christ 
employed was the direct one of making it a point of duty 
to feel it. To love one’s neighbour as oneself was, he said, 
the first and greatest Jaw. And in the Sermon on the 
Mount he requires the passion to be felt in such strength 
_as to include those whom we have most reason to hate— 
our enemies and those who maliciously injure us—and 
| delivers an imperative precept, “‘ Love your enemies.” 
__ It has been shown that to do this is not, as might at 
first appear, in the nature of things impossible, but the 
further question suggests itself, Can it be done to order? 
Has the verb to love really an imperative mood? Cer- 
tainly, to say that we can love at pleasure, and by a mere 
effort of will summon up a passion which does not arise 
of itself, is to take up a paradoxical and novel position. 
Yet if this position be really untenable, how is it possible 
to obey Christ’s commands? 

The difficulty seems to admit of only one solution. 
We are not commanded to create by an effort of will a 
feeling of love in ourselves which otherwise would have 
had no existence; the feeling must arise naturally or it 
cannot arise at all. But a number of causes which are 
‘Temovable may interfere to prevent the feeling from 
arising or to stifle it as it arises, and we are commanded 
to remove these hindrances. It is natural to man to love 
his kind, and Christ commands us only to give nature 
play. He does not expect us to procure for ourselves 
hearts of some new supernatural texture, but merely the 
heart of flesh for the heart of stone. 

What, then, are the causes of this paralysis of the heart? 
‘The experience of human ‘life furnishes us readily with 
: 125 





126 Ecce Homo 


the answer. It constantly happens that one whose aff 
tions were originally not less lively than those of mos 
men is thrown into the society of persons destitute of 
sympathy or tenderness. In this society each person is 
either totally indifferent to his neighbour or secretly en- 
deavouring to injure or overreach him. The new-comer 
is at first open-hearted and cordial; he presumes every 
one he meets to be a friend, and is disposed to serve and 
expects to be served by all alike. But his advances are 
met by some with cautious reserve, by others with icy 
coldness, by others with hypocritical warmth followed by 
treacherous injury, by others with open hostility. The 
heart which naturally grew warm at the mere sight of a 
human being, under the operation of this new experience 
slowly becomes paralysed. There seats itself gradually in 
the man’s mind a presumption concerning every new face 
that it is the face of an enemy, and a habit of gathering 
himself into an attitude of self-defence whenever he deals 
with a fellow-creature. If when this new disposition has 
grown confirmed and habitual, he be introduced into a 
society of an opposite kind and meet with people as 
friendly and kind as he himself was originally, he will not 
at first be able to believe in their sincerity, and the old 
kindly affections from long disuse will be slow to rouse 
themselves within him. Now to such a person the im- 
perative mood of the verb to love may fairly be used. He 
may properly be told to make an effort, to shake off the 
distrust that oppresses him, not to suffer unproved sus- 
picions, causeless jealousies, to stifle by the mere force of 
prejudice and mistaken opinion the warmth of feeling 
natural to him. 

But we shall have a closer illustration if we suppose the 
cold-hearted society itself to be addressed by a preacher 
who wishes to bring them to a better mind. He too may 
fairly use the imperative mood of the verb to love. For 
he may say, “‘ Your mutual coldness does not spring from 
an original want of the power of sympathy. [If it did, 
admonitions would indeed be useless. But it springs from 
a habit of thought which you have formed, a maxim 
which has been received among you, that all men are 


| The Enthusiasm of Humanity 127 


evoted to self-interest, that kindness is but feebleness 
and invites injury. If you will at once and by a common 
act throw off this false opinion of human nature, and 
adopt a new plan of life for yourselves and new expecta- 
tions of each other, you will find the old affections natural 
to all of you, weakened indeed and chilled, but existing 
and capable of being revived by an effort.” 

Such a preacher might go further and say, “If but a 
small minority are convinced by my words, yet let that 
minority for itself abandon the selfish theory, let it re- 
nounce the safety which that theory affords in dealing 
with selfish men, let it treat the enemy as if he were indeed 
the friend he ought to be, let it dare to forego retaliation 
and even self-defence. By this means it will shame many 
into kindness ; by despising self-interest for itself it will 
sometimes make it seem despicable to others, by sincerity 
and persistency it will gradually convert the majority to 
a higher law of intercourse. 

The world has been always more or less like this cold- 
hearted society; the natural kindness and fellow-feeling 
of men have always been more or less repressed by low- 
minded maxims and cynicism. But in the time of Christ, 

and in the last decrepitude of ethnic morality, the selfish- 
mess of human intercourse was much greater than the 
present age can easily understand. That system of 
morality, even in the times when it was powerful and in 
many respects beneficial, had made it almost as much a 
duty to hate foreigners as to love fellow-citizens. Plato. 
congratulates the Athenians on having shown in their 
relations to Persia, beyond all the other Greeks, ‘‘ a pure 
and heartfelt hatred of the foreign nature.” 1 Instead of 
opposing, it had sanctioned and consecrated the savage 
instinct which leads us to hate whatever is strange or un- 
intelligible, to distrust those who live on the further side 
of a river, to suppose that those whom we hear talking 


1 otrw 64 Tor T6 ye THs TédAEws yevvatoy Kal édeVOepov BEBardy Te 
kal vyés €ort Kal PUoet wtcoBdpBapor ba 7d eiAikpwas elyar 
EAnves Kal duryets BapBdpwr. . . . GAN adrol "ENAnves, od 
puzoBapBapol olkoduev S0ev kaOapdy Topmioos EvTETHKE TH 
mONEL THS GNNOTpLas PUG ews.—Plato, Menexenus, p. 245. 


128 Ecce Homo 






together in a foreign tongue must be plotting some 
chief against ourselves. The lapse of time and 
fusion of races doubtless diminished this antipathy co 
siderably, but at the utmost it could but be transform 
into an icy indifference, for no cause was in operatio} 
to convert it into kindness. On the other hand, 
closeness of the bond which united fellow-citizens was 
_ considerably relaxed. Common interests and common 
dangers had drawn it close; these in the wide security of 
the Roman Empire had no longer a place. It had 
depended upon an imagined blood-relationship; fellow- 
citizens could now no longer feel themselves to be united 
by the tie of blood. Every town was full of resident 
aliens and emancipated slaves, persons between whom 
and the citizens nature had established no connection, 
and whose presence in the city had originally been barely 
tolerated from motives of expediency. The selfishness of 
modern times exists in defiance of morality, in ancient 
times it was approved, sheltered, and even in part en- 
joined by morality. 

We are therefore to consider the ancient world as 2 
society of men in whom natural humanity existed but had 
been, as it were, crusted or frosted over. Inveterate feuds 
and narrow-minded local jealousies, arising out of an iso- 
lated position or differences of language and institutions, 
had created endless divisions between man and man. 
And as the special virtues of antiquity, patriotism and all 
that it implies, had been in a manner caused and fostered 
by these very divisions, they were not regarded as evils 
but rather cherished as essential to morality. Selfishness 
therefore, was not a mere abuse or corruption arising out 
of the infirmity of human nature, but a theory and almost 
a part of moral philosophy. Humanity was cramped by 
a mistaken prejudice, by a perverse presumption of the 
intellect. In a case like this it was necessary and propel 
to prescribe humanity by direct authoritative precept 
Such a precept would have been powerless to create tht 
feeling, nor would it have done much to protect it from 
being overpowered by the opposite passion; but the oppo 
site passion of selfishness was at this period justified by 


: The Enthusiasm of Humanity 129 


authority and claimed to be on the side of reason and law. 
Precept is fairly matched against precept, and what the 
law of love and the golden rule did for mankind was to 
dlace for the first time the love of man as man distinctly 
n the list of virtues, to dissipate the exclusive prejudices 
of ethnic morality, and to give selfishness the character 
of sin. 

_ When a theory of selfishness is rife in a whole com- 
munity, it is a bold and hazardous step for a part of the 
>ommunity to abandon it. For in the society of selfish 
deople selfishness is simply self-defence; to renounce it is 
0 evacuate one’s entrenched position, to surrender at 
jiscretion to the enemy. If society is to disarm, it should 
Jo so by common consent. Christ, however, though he 
onfidently expected ultimately to gather all mankind 
nto his society, did not expect to do so soon. Accord- 
ngly he commands his followers not to wait for this con- 
ummation, but, in spite of the hazardous nature of the 
ee, to disarm at once. They are sent forth “ as sheep in 
the midst of wolves.” Injuries they are to expect, but 
hey are neither to shun nor to retaliate them. Harmless 
ey are to be as doves. The discipline of suffering will 
wean them more and more from self, and make the 
of humanity freer within them; and sometimes 
heir patience may shame the spoiler; he may grow 
weary of rapacity which meets with no resistance, and be 
nduced to envy those who can forego without reluctance 
hat which he devotes every thought to acquire. 

But we shall soon be convinced that Christ could not 
lesign by a mere edict, however authoritative, to give this 
yassion of humanity strength enough to make it a living 
ind infallible principle of morality in every man, when we 
onsider, first, what an ardent enthusiasm he demanded 
rom his followers, and secondly, how frail and tender a 
erm this passion naturally is in human nature. Widely 
liffused indeed it is, and seldom entirely eradicated, but 
or the most part, at least in the ancient world, it was 
rushed under a weight of predominant passions and 
nterests; it had seldom power enough to dictate any 
ction, but made itself felt in faint misgivings and re- 

I 


130 Ecce Homo 


lentings, which sometimes restrained men from extrem 
of cruelty. Like Enceladus under Aitna, it lay fettere 
at the bottom of human nature, now and then maki 
the mass above it quake by an uneasy change of posture, 
To make this outraged and enslaved passion predominant, 
to give it, instead of a veto rarely used, the whole power 
of government, to train it from a dim misgiving reo | 
clear and strong passion, required much more than 
precept. The precept had its use; it could make me 
feel it right to be humane and desire to be so, but it coul 
never inspire them withan enthusiasm of humanity. Fro 
what source was this inspiration to be derived? | 
Humanity, we have already observed, is neither a love 
for the whole human race, nor a love for each individual 
of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal of man, im 
each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he 
who is truly humane considers every human being a: 
such interesting and important, and without waiting te 
criticise each individual specimen, pays in advance t¢ 
all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy. Now 
this favourable presumption with regard to human beings 
is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstitior 
of the mind, nor is it a natural instinct. It is a feeling 
founded on the actual observation and discovery of in 
teresting and noble qualities in particular human beings 
and it is strong or weak in proportion as the person wh« 
has the feeling has known many or few noble and amiabl 
human beings. There are men who have been so unfor 
tunate as to live in the perpetual society of the mean ant 
the base; they have never, except in a few faint glimpses 
seen anything glorious or good in human nature. Wit 
these the feeling of humanity has a perpetual struggle fo 
existence, their minds tend by a fatal gravitation to th 
belief that the happiness or misery of such a paltry race i 
wholly unimportant; they may arrive finally at a fixer 
condition, in which it may be said of them without qualifi 
cation, that ‘‘ man delights not them, nor woman neither. 
In this final stage they are men who, beyond the routin 
of life, should not be trusted, being “ fit for treason: 
_ stratagems, and spoils.” On the other hand, there ar 


; 


3 


: The Enthusiasm of Humanity 131 


those whose lot it has been from earliest childhood to see 
the fair side of humanity, who have been surrounded with 
clear and candid countenances, in the changes of which 
might be traced the working of passions strong and simple, 
the impress of a firm and tender nature, wearing when it 
looked abroad the glow of sympathy, and when i it looked 
within the bloom of modesty. They have seen, and not 
pnce or twice, a man forget himself; they have witnessed 
devotion, unselfish Sorrow, unaffected delicacy, spon- 
taneous charity, ingenuous self-reproach; and it may be 
that on seeing a human being surrender for another’s 
good not something but his uttermost all, they have dimly 
suspected in human nature a glory connecting it with the 
divine. In these the passion of humanity is warm and 
ready to become on occasion a burning flame; their 
whole minds are elevated, because they are possessed with 
the dignity of that nature they share, and of the society 
in the midst of which they move. 
| But it is not absolutely necessary to humanity that a 
man shall have seen many men whom he can respect. 
The most lost cynic will get a new heart by learning 
thoroughly to believe in the virtue of ome man. Our 
estimate of human nature is in proportion to the best 
specimen of it we have witnessed. This then it is which 
is wanted to raise the feeling of humanity into an en- 
thusiasm; when the precept of love has been given, an 
image must be set before the eyes of those who are called 
upon to obey it, an ideal or type of man which may be 
noble and amiable enough to raise the whole race and 
make the meanest member of it sacred with reflected glory. 
Did not Christ do this? Did the command to love go 
forth to those who had never seen a human being they 
could revere? Could his followers turn upon him and 
say, How can we love a creature so degraded, full of vile 
wants and contemptible passions, whose little life is most 
harmlessly spent when it is an empty round of eating and 
sleeping; a creature destined for the grave and for ob- 
livion when his allotted term of fretfulness and folly has 
expired? Of this race Christ himself was a member, and 
fo this day is it not the best answer to all blasphemers, 







132 Ecce Homo 


of the species, the best consolation when our sense of it 
degradation is keenest, that a human brain was behind 
forehead and a human heart beating in his breast, and t. 
within the whole creation of God nothing more elevat 
or more attractive has yet been found than he? 
if it be answered that there was in his nature something 
exceptional and peculiar, that humanity must not be 
measured by the stature of Christ, let us remember that 
it was precisely thus that he wished it to be measured, 
delighting to call himself the Son of Man, delighting 
to call the meanest of mankind his brothers. If some 
human beigs are abject and contemptible, if it be in- 
credible to us that they can have any high dignity or 
destiny, do we regard them from so great a height as 
Christ? Are we likely to be more pained by their faults 
and deficiencies than he was? Is our standard higher 
than his? And yet he associated by preference with 
these meanest of the race; no contempt for them did he 
ever express, no suspicion that they might be less dear 
than the best and wisest to the common Father, no 
doubt that they were naturally capable of rising to a 
moral elevation like his own. There is nothing of which 
a man may be prouder than of this; it is the most hopeful 
and redeeming fact in history; it is precisely what was 
wanting to raise the love of man as man to enthusiasm. 
An eternal glory has been shed upon the human race by 
the love Christ bore to it. And it was because the Edict 
of Universal Love went forth to men whose hearts were 
in no cynical mood but possessed with a spirit of devotion 
to a man, that words which at any other time, however 
grandly they might sound, would have been but words, 
penetrated so deeply, and along with the law of love the 

power of love was given. Therefore also the first Chris- 
_ tians were enabled to dispense with philosophical phrases, 
and instead of saying that they loved the ideal of man 
in man could simply say and feel that they loved Christ 
in every man. 

We have here the very kernel of the Christian moral 
scheme. We have distinctly before us the end Christ 
proposed to himself, and the means he considered ade- 

; 


The Enthusiasm of Humanity 133 


Bate to the attainment of it. His object was, instead 
of drawing up, after the example of previous legislators, 
a list of actions prescribed, allowed, and prohibited, to 
give his disciples a universal test by which they might 
discover what it was right and what it was wrong to do. 
Now as the difficulty of discovering what is right arises 
commonly from the prevalence of self-interest in our 
minds, and as we commonly behave rightly to anyone for 
‘whom we feel affection or sympathy, Christ considered 
that he who could feel sympathy for all would behave 
rightly to all. But how to give to the meagre and narrow 
hearts of men such enlargement? How to make them 
capable of a universal sympathy? Christ believed it pos- 
sible to bind men to their kind, but on one condition— 
that they were first bound fast to himself. He stood forth 
as the representative of men, he identified himself with 
the cause and with the interests of all human beings, he 
was destined, as he began before long obscurely to inti- 
mate, to lay down his life for them. Few of us sym- 
pathise originally and directly with this devotion; few of 
us can perceive in human nature itself any merit sufficient 
to evoke it. But it is not so hard to love and venerate 
him who felt it. So vast a passion of love, a devotion 
so comprehensive, elevated, deliberate and profound, has 
not elsewhere been in any degree approached save by 
some of his imitators. And as love provokes love, many 
have found it possible to conceive for Christ an attach- 
ment the closeness of which no words can describe, a 
veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within 
them, that they have said, “I live no more, but Christ 
lives in me.” Now such a feeling carries with it of 
mecessity the feeling of love for all human beings. It 
matters no longer what quality men may exhibit; amiable 
or unamiable, as the brothers of Christ, as belonging to 
his sacred and consecrated kind, as the objects of his love 
in life and death, they must be dear to all to whom he is 
dear. And those who would for a moment know his heart 
and understand his life must begin by thinking of the whole 
race of man, and of each member of the race, with awful 
Teverence and hope. 


\ 


134 Ecce Homo 


Love, wheresoever it appears, is in its measure a la 
making power. “Love is dutiful in thought and deed. 
And as the lover of his country is free from the tempta: 
tion to treason, so is he who loves Christ secure from the 
temptation to injure any human being, whether it bi 
himself or another. He is indeed much more than this 
He is bound and he is eager to benefit and bless to the 
utmost of his power all that bear his Master’s nature, anc 
that not merely with the good gifts of the earth, but witl 
whatever cherishes and trains best the Christ within them 
But for the present we are concerned merely with thi 
power of this passion to lift the man out of sin. The in 
juries he committed lightly when he regarded his fellow 
creatures simply as animals who added to the fiercenes: 
of the brute an ingenuity and forethought that made then 
doubly noxious, become horrible sacrilege when he sees it 
them no longer the animal but the Christ. And that othe 
class of crimes which belongs more especially to ages 0 
civilisation, and arises out of a cynical contemp: for thi 
species, is rendered equally impossible to the man whi 
hears with reverence the announcement, “The goot 
deeds you did to the least of these my brethren you di 
to me.” 

There are two objections which may suggest themselve 
at this point, the one to intellectual, the other to practica 
men. The intellectual man may say, “ To discover wha 
it is right to do in any given case is not the province o 
any feeling or passion however sublime, but requires th 
application of the same intellectual power which solve 
mathematical problems. The common acts of life ma) 
no doubt be performed correctly by unintellectual people 
but this is because these constantly recurring problem 
have been solved long ago by clever people, and th 
vulgar are now in possession of the results. Whenever 
new combination occurs it is a matter for casuists; th 
best intentions will avail little; there is doubtless a grea 
difference between a good man and a bad one; the on 
will do what is right when he knows it, and the other wi. 
not; but in respect for the power of ascertaining what 1 
is right to do, supposing their knowledge of casuistry t 


The Enthusiasm of Humanity 135 


be equal, they are on a par. Goodness or the passion of 
humanity, or Christian love, may be a motive inducing 
_men to keep the law, but it has no right to be called the 
law-making power. And what has Christianity added to 
our theoretic knowledge of morality? It may have made 
men practically more moral, but has it added anything 
to Aristotle’s Ethics? ” 

_ Certainly Christianity has no ambition to invade the 
| 





“provinces of the moralist or the casuist. But the difh- 
culties which beset the discovery of the right moral course 
are of two kinds. There are the difficulties which arise 
from the blinding and confusing effect of selfish passions, 
and which obscure from the view the end which should be 
aimed at in action; when these have been overcome there 
“arises a new set of difficulties concerning the means by 
| which the end should be attained. In dealing with your 
“neighbour the first thing to be understood is that his in- 
terest is to be considered as well as your own; but when 
this has been settled, it remains to be considered what his 
interest is. The latter class of difficulties requires to be 
dealt witn by the intellectual or calculating faculty. The 
former class can only be dealt with by the moral force of 
“sympathy. Now it is true that the right action will not be 
performed without the operation of both these agencies. 
But the moral agency is the dominant one throughout; 
it is that without which the very conception of law is 
impossible; it overcomes those difficulties which in the 
vast majority of practical cases are the most serious. The 
calculating casuistical faculty is, as it were, in its employ, 
and it is no more improper to call it the law-making power, 
although it does not ultimately decide what action is to be 
_ performed, than to say that a house was built by one who 
did not with his own hands lay the bricks and spread the 
mortar. 
_ The objection which practical men take is a very im- 
portant one, as the criticisms of such men always are, 
being founded commonly upon large observation and not 
"perverted by theory. They say that the love of Christ 
does not in practice produce the nobleness and largeness 
of character which has been represented as its proper and 





136 Ecce Homo 


natural result; that instead of inspiring those who feel i 
with reverence and hope for their kind, it makes them 
exceedingly narrow in their sympathies, disposed to deny 
and explain away even the most manifest virtues displaye 
by men, and to despair of the future destiny of the great 
majority of their fellow-creatures; that instead of binding 
them to their kind, it divides them from it by a gulf which 
they themselves proclaim to be impassable and eternal, and 
unites them only in a gloomy conspiracy of misanthropy 
with each other; that it is indeed a law-making power, 
but that the laws it makes are little-minded and vexatious 
prohibitions of things innocent, demoralising restraints 
upon the freedom of joy and the healthy instincts of 
nature; that it favours hypocrisy, moroseness, and some- 
times lunacy; that the only vice it has power to check is 
thoughtlessness, and its only beneficial effect is that of 
forcing into activity, though not always into healthy 
activity, the faculty of serious reflection. 

This may be a just picture of a large class of religious 
men, but it is impossible in the nature of things that such 
effects should be produced by a pure personal devotion 
to Christ. We are to remember that nothing has been 
subjected to such multiform and grotesque perversion as 
Christianity. Certainly the direct love of Christ, as it was 
felt by his first followers, is a rare thing among modern 
Christians. His character has been so much obscured by 
scholasticism, as to have lost in a great measure its at- 
tractive power. The prevalent feeling towards him now 
among religious men is an awful fear of his supernatural 
greatness, and a disposition to obey his commands arising 
partly from dread of future punishment and hope of 
reward, and partly from a nobler feeling of loyalty, which, 
however, is inspired rather by his office than his person. 
Beyond this we may discern in them an uneasy conviction 
that he requires a more personal devotion, which leads to 
spasmodic efforts to kindle the feeling by means of violent 
raptures of panegyric and by repeating over and getting 
by rote the ardent expressions of those who really had it. 
That is wanting for the most part which Christ held to be 
all in all, spontaneous warmth, free and generous devotion. 


The Enthusiasm of Humanity 137 


hat the fruits of a Christianity so hollow should be poor 
ind sickly is not surprising. 
_ But that Christ’s method, when rightly applied, is really 
if mighty force may be shown by an argument which the 
everest censor of Christians will hardly refuse to admit. 
Jompare the ancient with the modern world; “ Look on 
is picture and on that.” One broad distinction in the 
haracters of men forces itself into prominence. Among 
Il the men of the ancient heathen world there were 
carcely one or two to whom we might venture to apply 
ne epithet “holy.” In other words, there were not more 
dan one or two, if any, who besides being virtuous in 
deir actions were possessed with an unaffected enthusiasm 
f goodness, and besides abstaining from vice regarded 
ven a vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will 
eny that in Christian countries this higher-toned good- 
ess, which we call holiness, has existed. Few will main- 
Lin that it has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth 
, that there has scarcely been a town in any Christian 
yuntry since the time of Christ where a century has 
assed without exhibiting a character of such elevation 
iat his mere presence has shamed the bad and made the 
0d better, and has been felt at times like the presence of 
od Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed? or can 
aristianity die? 








CHAPTER XV 


THE LORD’S SUPPER 




























Tuat Christ had but a slight esteem for rites and cer 
monies may be argued negatively from his establishing 
few, and positively from the contempt he poured on t 
traditional formalities prized so highly by the Scribes a 
Pharisees.’ But he well understood their use, and 
have already observed with what rigorous firmness he 
sisted on his followers submitting to the initiatory rite 
baptism. The kingdom he was founding was to be ever 
where imperium in imperio ; its members were to be at t 
same time members of secular states and national bodit 
It was therefore a matter of extreme importance to p 
serve the distinctness of the Christian society and to p 
vent its members from being drawn apart from each othi 
by the distractions of worldly claims and engagement 
For this purpose certain sacramenta or solemn obser 
ances renewing and reminding them of their union v 
most desirable, and Christ ordained two, the one € 
pressing the distinctness of the Church from the worl 
and the other the unity of the Church within itself. Oft 
former, Baptism, mention was made when we consider 
Christ’s Call, concerning the latter, the Common Supp 
or cvocirwv of Christians, it is convenient to say som 
thing now. 
A common meal is the most natural and universal w 
of expressing, maintaining, and as it were ratifying re 
tions of friendship. The spirit of antiquity regarded t 
meals of human beings as having the nature of sacred rit 
(sacra mensz). If therefore it sounds degrading to 
pare the Christian Communion to a club-dinner, t i 
not owing to any essential difference between the 
things, but to the fact that the moderns connect less di 
fied associations with meals than the ancients did, 
138 


The Lord’s Supper I 39 


hat most clubs have a far less serious object than the 
Christian Society. The Christian Communion 7s a club- 
Jinner: but the club is the New Jerusalem; God and 
Christ are members of it; death makes no vacancy in its 
ists, but at its banquet-table the perfected spirits of just 
men, with an innumerable company of angels, sit down 
deside those who have not yet surrendered their bodies 
to the grave. 
_ Goethe thought that Protestant Christians have too few 
sacraments, and this opinion is not refuted by the fact 
shat Christ himself only instituted two. We are to sup- 
dose, however, that these two are the most essential, and 
ndeed without them we can scarcely imagine the Church 
maintaining its distinct existence. Without a solemn 
oe of entrance, and without occasional solemn meetings, 
hristians would forget that they were Christians. But in 
shese meetings it was obviously desirable, if it were possible, 
hat not only the fact of the union of Christians, but also 
he nature and manner of théir union, should be sym- 
dolically expressed. We have now considered at some 
length the nature and conditions of the Christian Society, 
without referring to or producing in evidence the Lord’s 
Supper. If therefore the form of the Lord’s Supper ex- 
presses symbolically such a union as we have described, 
we shall derive from this fact a confirmation of the results 
at which we had independently arrived. 
Of those results some do not require confirmation, being 
in themselves obvious and disputed by none. It has 
ever been questioned that the doctrine of the brother- 
ood of mankind and of the duty of universal benevolence 
and charity is a main feature of Christianity. This 
octrine, then, is very plainly symbolised in the Lord’s 
upper. Asa meeting or communion it is clearly designed 
to express a certain fellowship between those who share it; 
by admitting all Christians without distinction on equal 
terms, it expresses the universal character of the society. 
The extreme simplicity of the ceremony makes its sym- 
bolical character more impressive, and averts, as far as 
that is possible, the danger which all venerated symbols 
incur of being valued for their own sake and confounded 





140 Ecce Homo 


with the thing symbolised. The meal consisted of br 
and wine, the simplest and in those countries most u 
versal elements of food; and when men of different nation 
or degrees sat or knelt together and received, as from th 
hand of God, this simple repast, they were reminded in the 
most forcible manner of their common human wants, 
their common character of pensioners on the bounty 
the Universal Father. . 

But Christ added something to the ceremony. He bad 
his followers consider the bread they ate as his body, ant 
the wine they drank as his blood. And in a discours 
recorded by St. John, which we may quote without dis 
trust, as it is so manifestly confirmed by the account 
given by the other Evangelists of the institution of thi 
Supper, he says, ‘“‘ Except ye eat the flesh and drink thi 
blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you.” Wha 
Christ meant by life is not now difficult to discover. I 
is that healthy condition of the mind which issues 0 
necessity in right action. This health of the soul we knoy 
Christ regarded as consisting in a certain enthusiasm 0 
love for human beings as such. This enthusiasm then 
we are now informed, will not spring up in us spon 
taneously nor by any efforts we may make to kindle it i 
ourselves, nor is the message of Christianity fully deliveree 
when love to the human race is declared to be a duty 
human beings will not unite merely because they are toll 
to do so, nor will the anarchic passions submit to a mer 
reproof. Men cannot learn to love each other, says Christ 
but “ by eating his flesh and drinking his blood.” 

The Lord’s Supper, then, confirms by its symbolism th 
view of Christian morality which was taken in the las 
chapter. It was there asserted that Christ did not regart 
it as possible to unite men to each other but by first unit 
ing them to himself. And in the Lord’s Supper, in whiel 
the union of Christians is symbolised, it is represented a 
depending not merely on the natural passion of humanity 
implanted in their breasts, nor merely on the command 0 
Christ calling that passion into activity, but upon a certait 
intimate personal contact between Christ and his followers 
The union of mankind, but a union begun and subsisti 


| The Lord’s Supper 141 


y in Christ, is what the Lord’s Supper sacramentally 
resses. 
| As to the metaphor itself, if it seems at first violent and 
tural, we are to observe that on the subject of the 
yersonal devotion required by Christ from his followers 
is language was often of this vehement kind, and that 
is first followers in describing their relation to him in 
ike manner overleap the bounds of ordinary figurative 
guage. Christ, in a passage to which allusion has 
eady been made, demanded of his followers that they 
hould hate their father and mother for his sake, and St. 
aul in many passages declares that Christ is his life and 
is very self. It is precisely this intense personal devotion, 
his habitual feeding on the character of Christ, so that 
he essential nature of the Master seems to pass into and 
me the essential nature of the servant — loyalty 
arried to the point of self-annihilation—that is expressed 
yy the words “eating the flesh and drinking the blood 
f Christ.” 
| Much remains to be said about the details of Christian 
orality, but the reader should already be in a condition 
o understand and judge of its scope. And let us pause 
nce more to consider that which remains throughout a 
ubject of ever-recurring astonishment, the unbounded 
yersonal pretensions which Christ advances. It is 
(ommon in human history to meet with those who claim 
me superiority over their fellows. Men assert a pre- 
Bene. over their fellow-citizens or fellow-countrymen 
ind become rulers of those who at first were their equals, 
ut they dream of nothing greater than some partial 
ntrol over the actions of others for the short space of 
lifetime. Few indeed are those to whom it is given to 
uence future ages. Yet some men have appeared who 
ve been “as levers to uplift the earth and roll it n 
other course.” Homer by creating literature, Socrates 
creating science, Cesar by carrying civilisation inland 
m the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by starting 
lence upon a career of steady progress, may be said to 
ve attained this eminence. But these men gave a 
ingle impact like that which is conceived to have first 



























142 Ecce Homo 


set the planets in motion, Christ claims to be a perpetu 
attractive power like the sun which determines the 
orbit. They contributed to men some discovery 4 
passed away; Christ’s discovery is himself. To humanii 
struggling with its passions and its destiny he says, Clir 
to me, cling ever closer to me. If we believe St. John, f 
represented himself as the Light of the World, as 
Shepherd of the Souls of men, as the Way to immortality 
as the Vine or Life-Tree of Humanity. “And if we refus 
to believe that he used those words, we cannot den 
without rejecting all the evidence before us, that he use 
words which have substantially the same meaning. We 
cannot deny that he commanded men to leave eve 
thing and attach themselves to him; that he declare 
himself king, master, and judge of men; that he promi 
to give rest to all the weary and heavy-laden; that h 
instructed his followers to hope for life from feeding or 
his body and blood. 
But it is doubly surprising to observe that these e¢ 
mous pretensions were advanced” by one whose specia 
peculiarity, not only among his contemporaries but amon 
the remarkable men that have appeared before and sina 
was an almost feminine tenderness and humanity. 
characteristic was remarked, as we have seen, by 
Baptist, and Christ himself was fully conscious of it. 
so clear to him was his own dignity and infinite importa 
to the human race. as an objective fact with which hi 
own opinion of himself had nothing to do, that in the sam 
breath in which he ass it in the most unmeasu 
language he alludes, sppreatly with entire unconscious 
ness, to his humility. “Take my yoke upon you af 
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.” And again 
when speaking to his followers of. the arrogance of th 
Pharisees, he says, “‘ they love to be called Rabbi; but b 
not you called Rabbi, for one 1s your master, even Christ. 
Who is the humble man? It is he who resists wi 
special watchfulness and success the temptations whic 
the conditions of his life may offer to exaggerate his ov 
importance. He, for example, is humble who, born into 
high station, remembers that those who are placed lov 
in society are also men and may have more intrinsic met 


The Lord’s Supper 143 








ind dignity than himself. Christ could not show his 
umility in this way, for he was poor and obscure. But 
here are peculiar temptations which assail the thinker. 
de is in danger of being intoxicated by the influence 
hich he gains over others, he feels himself elevated by 
he greatness of the thoughts with which his mind habit- 
tally deals and which from time to time it originates. If 
esides intellectual gifts the thinker possess acute sensi- 
ility, strong moral intuitions, heroic powers of indigna- 
ion and pity, his temptation is to suppose that he is made 
f finer clay than other men, and that he has a natural 
tle to pre-eminence and sovereignty over them. Such is 
he temptation of moral reformers such as Christ, and if 
shrist was humble he resisted this temptation with ex- 
ptional success. If he judged himself correctly, and if 
e Baptist described him well when he compared him 
a lamb, and, we may add, if his biographers have de- 
neated his character faithfully, Christ was one naturally 
mtented with obscurity, wanting the restless desire for 
istinction and eminence which is common in great men, 
ating to put forward personal claims, disliking competi- 
on and “ disputes who should be greatest,” finding some- 
ing bombastic in the titles of royalty, fond of what is 

ple and homely, of children, of poor people, occupying 
imself so much with the concerns of others, with the relief 
f sickness and want, that the temptation to exaggerate 
he importance of his own thoughts and plans was not 
Kely to master him; lastly, entertaining for the human 
ace a feeling so singularly fraternal that he was likely to 
ject as a sort of treason the impulse to set himself in 
hy manner above them. Christ, it appears, was this 
umble man. When we have fully pondered the fact, 
fe may be in a condition to estimate the force of the 
vidence, which, submitted to his mind, could induce him, 
1 direct opposition to all his tastes and instincts, to lay 
a persistently, with the calmness of entire conviction, 
Opposition to the whole religious world, in spite of the 
ence which his own followers conceived, to a dominion 
ore transcendent, more universal, more complete, than 
1€ most delirious votary of glory ever aspired to in his 


eams. 

















CHAPTER XVI 


POSITIVE MORALITY 















Our investigation into the character of the law unde 
which the members of the Christian Commonwealth ai 
called to live has led us to the discovery that in the stri¢ 
sense of the word no such law exists, it being characteristi 
of this commonwealth that every member of it is a law 
giver to himself. Every Christian, we learn, has a divi 
inspiration which dictates to him in all circumstances 

right course of action, which inspiration is the passion 
humanity raised to a high energy by contemplation 4 
Christ’s character, and by the society of those in whom th 
same enthusiasm exists. We cease, therefore, hencefort 
to speak of a Christian law, and endeavour instead 
describe in its large outlines the Christian character; tha 
is to say, the new views, feelings, and habits produced 
the Christian by his guiding enthusiasm. 

The tendency and operation of this enthusiasm will b 
most clearly apprehended if we consider the way in which 
it led those who felt it to regard the current morality o 
their time and country, in other words, the Jewish law 
In this law they had been bred; it was their rule of life 
to the time when they awoke to a new life. How, ther 
did they regard this system after their regeneration? 

In the first place they regarded it critically, as somé 
thing of which they were independent and with whidl 
they could dispense. They had in their own breasts af 
inexhaustible spring of morality; of written and formu 
lated morality they had henceforth no need. Feeling : 
sure foundation under their feet, they gathered courage fo 
the first time to examine and criticise what before the} 
had felt it their wisdom to receive without criticism. A 
Jews their piety had consisted in a certain timid cautiol 


144 Z 


: Positive Morality 145 


ra wary walking in the old paths, and when they became 
‘Christians, it is remarkable that they gave to those who 
continued to be what they had originally been the title 
of “the cautious men.” 

In periods which are wanting in inspiration piety always 
assumes this character of caution. It degenerates from a 
free and joyful devotion to a melancholy and anxious 
slavery. The first work of the Divine Spirit was a work 
of encouragement, and the humblest man was found the 
most courageous of all. He scrutinised fearlessly the 
mass of traditions which then went by the name of the 
Law, and unhesitatingly pronounced a great part of them 
eating in authority. Some of these time - honoured 
usages he stigmatised as immoral and mischievous, others, 
which were in themselves indifferent, he treated with con- 
temptuous neglect. We may imagine that by this conduct 
he gave grievous offence to some honest, “ cautious,” con- 

ative spirits. Doubtless—thus they may have expos- 
lated—the washing of cups and pots is in itself unim- 
rtant, but wise men, our ancestors, have prescribed the 
e; by such symbolism we may learn the lesson and 
orm the habit of purity. These men Christ perhaps re- 
ded as Milton regarded the versifier who did not know 
whether his lines were of the right length till he had 
counted the syllables. As the poet consulted on such 
questions only the soul of rhythm within him, so were all 
mysteries of purity made clear to Christ by the Spirit 
f purity which he had received from above. It was not, 
indeed, in his nature to despise anything which might be 
eful to the ignorant and the weak, however unnecessary 
or himself. As he stooped to receive baptism from John, 
so he would, no doubt, have sanctified these usages by 
= own observance if he had seen any good in them at all. 
ut he seems to have considered that the time for these 
methods was gone by; and as all such contrivances begin 
to be mischievous the moment they cease to be beneficial, 
he condemned them as fettering the freedom of that in- 
spiration which was for the future to take the place of law. 
__Of the Scriptures of the Old Testament he always spoke 
with the utmost reverence, and he seems never to have 
a * K 


a 
td 









146 Ecce Homo 


called in question the Jewish view of them as infalli 
oracles of God. Some parts of them, particularly the b 
of Deuteronomy, seem to have been often present to h 
thoughts. Yet even the Old Testament he regarded in 
sense critically, and he introduced canons of interpretati 
which must have astonished by their boldness the religiot 
men of the day. For he regarded the laws of Mos 
though divine, as capable of becoming obsolete and als 
as incomplete. On the question of divorce he declar 
the Mosaic arrangement to have been well suited for 
“ hard-heartedness ” of a semi-barbarous age, but to be 
longer justifiable in the advanced condition of mor: 
So too in the matter of oaths, the permission of priva 
revenge, and other points in which the Mosaic legislati 
had necessarily something of a barbaric character, he 
hesitatingly repealed the acts of the lawgiver and in 
duced new provisions. ; 
It is easy to imagine the alarm which such freedom 
interpretation must have excited in the “cautious. 
They would declare it destructive of the authority of 
Scriptures. Were not the Scriptures given, they wo 
say, to save man from his own reason? Does not th 
priceless value consist in this, that for all conceivable ci 
cumstances they furnish a rule which simple men may fol 
low with simple obedience? But if these divine rules cai 
in any case become obsolete, if human affairs can chan, 
so far that the Scriptures can cease to be a guide to our fee 
if the words of the Eternal can be subject to the acciden 
of time and mutability, what further use can there be in the 
Scriptures, and how henceforth shall our steps be guidedi 
It was the inspiration, the law-making power, that ga 
Christ and his disciples courage to shake themselves fre 
from the fetters even of a divine law. Their position wa: 
a new and delicate one, and nothing but such an inspiratior 
could have enabled them to maintain it. To pronounet 
the old law entirely true or entirely false would have beer 
easy, but to consider it as true and divine yet no longel 
true for them, no longer their authoritative guide, mus 
have seemed, and must seem even to us, at first sigh 
unnatural and paradoxical. It may be illustrated, ho 






Positive Morality 147 


ever, by what everyone has observed to happen in the 
process of learning any art. For the beginner rigid 
Tules are prescribed, which it will be well for him for a 
time to follow punctiliously and blindly. He may be- 
lieve that under these rules a principle is concealed, that 
4 reason could be given why they should be followed, 
but it is well for a time that the principle should remain 
concealed and that the rules should be followed simply 
because they are prescribed. At any rate, so long as he 
actually has not discovered the principle, he must abide 
strictly by the rules, and it would be foolish to abandon 
them in order to go in search of it. But there comes a 
time when the discovery is made, a golden moment of 
silent expansion and enlargement. Then the reason of all 
the discipline to which he has submitted becomes clear to 
him, the principle reveals itself and makes the confused 
and ill-apprehended multitude of details in 2 moment 
harmonious and luminous. But the principle at the same 
‘Moment that it explains the rules supersedes them. They 
may be not less true than before, they may be seen to be 
true far more clearly than before. But they are obsolete c 
‘their use is gone; they can for the future tell only that 
which is already well known, which can never again be 
forgotten or misunderstood. If the student refers to them 
ae a later time it is with a feeling of wonder that they 
should ever have delayed his attention for a moment, and 
probably in the rude and peremptory particularity of their 
form he may discover that which, though well enough 
adapted for the beginner under certain circumstances, is 
yet in itself not true and is calculated under other circum- 
‘stances to mislead. 
_ It was in this manner that Christ found the Mosaic law 
at once divine and in part obsolete. But not only did he 
find it in part obsolete, he found it throughout utterly 
Meagre and imperfect. And this was inevitable. Between 
the rude clans that had listened to Moses in the Arabian 
desert and the Jews who in the reign of Tiberius visited 
the temple courts there was a great gulf. The “hard- 
heartedness ” of the primitive nation had given way under 


the gradual influence of law and peace and trade and 




























148 Ecce Homo 


literature. Laws which in the earlier time the best me 
had probably found it hard to keep could now serve onh 
as a curb upon the worst. The disciples of Moses wer 
subject to lawless passions which they could not contre 
and the fiercest ebullitions of which seemed to them venia’ 
misfortunes rather than crimes. Self-restraint of any kin¢ 
was to them a new and hard lesson. They listened wi 
awe to the inspired teacher who taught them not to cove 
their neighbour’s wife or property; and when they were 
commanded not to commit murder, they wondered doub: 
less by what art, by what contrivance, it might be possible 
to put a bridle on the thing called anger—“ anger which 
far sweeter than trickling drops of honey rises in the boson 
of a man like smoke.” But how much was all thi 
changed! If one like Paul had gone to a Christian teache 
after the new enthusiasm of humanity had been excited i 
him, and asked for instruction in morality, would it have 
satisfied him to be told that he must abstain from commit 
ting murder and robbery? These laws, to be sure, were 
not obsolete, but the better class of men had been raised te 
an elevation of goodness at which they were absolutely 
unassailable by temptations to commit them. Their 
moral sense required a different training, far more ad- 
vanced instruction. It is true that in the later books oi 
the Old Testament there might be found a morality con 
siderably more advanced, but through the life and example 
of Christ the humblest of his followers was advanced a 
long stage beyond even this. No one who had felt, how- 
ever feebly, the Christian enthusiasm could fail to find ever 
in Deuteronomy and Isaiah something narrow, antiquated, 
and insufficient for his needs. 

Now in what consisted precisely the addition made by 
Christ to morality ? 

It has been already shown that Christ raised the feeling 
of humanity from being a feeble restraining power to be 
an inspiring passion. The Christian moral reformation 
may indeed be summed up fin this—humanity changed 
from a restraint toa motive. We shall be prepared there- 
| fore to find that while earlier moralities had dealt chiefly 
in prohibitions, Christianity deals in positive commands. 
And precisely this is the case, preckely this difference 


Positive Morality 149 


made the Old Testament seem antiquated to the first 
‘Christians. They had passed from a region of passive 
into a region of active morality. The old legal formula 
began “ thou shalt not,” the new begins with “ thou shalt.” 
The young man who had kept the whole law—that is, who 
had refrained from a number of actions—is commanded 
‘to do something, to sell his goods and feed the poor. 
Condemnation passed under the Mosaic law upon him 
who had sinned, who had done something forbidden— 
the soul that sinneth shall die ;—Christ’s condemnation is 
pronounced upon those who had not done good. “I was 
an hungered and ye gave me no meat.”” The sinner whom 
Christ habitually denounces is he who has done nothing. 
This character comes repeatedly forward in his parables. 
It is the priest and Levite who passed by on the other 
side. It is Dives, of whom no ill is recorded except that 
a beggar lay at his gate full of sores and yet no man gave 
unto him. It is the servant who hid in a napkin the 
talent committed to him. It is the unprofitable servant, 
who has only done what it was his duty to do. 

tting together these parables delivered at different 
times and to different audiences, yet all teaching the same 
doctrine, and adding to them the positive exhortations 
to almsgiving, to free and lavish charity, we see that 
Christ’s conception of practical goodness answers to his 
ideal of a right state of mind. We observed that he 
considered the healthy condition of character to be an 
enthusiastic or inspired condition; we now find that he 
prescribes just such conduct as would be prompted by 
such enthusiastic feelings. And this consistency or unity 
of his teaching will appear still more plainly when we 
consider what the tenor of his own life was. It may 
sometimes strike us that the time which he devoted to 
acts of beneficence and the relief of ordinary physical evils 
night have been given to works more permanently bene- 
icial to the race. Of his two great gifts, the power over 
lature and the high moral wisdom and ascendency over 
nen, the former might be the more astonishing, but it is 
he latter which gives him his everlasting dominion. He 
night have left to all subsequent ages more instruction if 
1¢ had bestowed less time upon diminishing slightly the 


150 Ecce Homo . 


mass of evil around him, and lengthening by a span t 
short lives of the generation in the midst of which 
lived. The whole amount of good done by such works 
charity could not be great, compared with Christ’s pow 

of doing good; and if they were intended, as is often su 
posed, merely as attestations of his divine mission, a fe 
acts of the kind would have served this purpose as well as 
many. Yet we may see that they were in fact the great 
work of his life; his biography may be summed up in the 
words, “ he went about doing good ”; his wise words were 
secondary to his beneficial deeds; the latter were not 
introductory to the former, but the former grew occasion- 
ally, and, as it were, accidentally out of the latter. The 
explanation of this is that Christ merely reduced to prac- 
tice his own principle. His morality required that the 
welfare and happiness of others should not merely be re- 
membered as a restraint upon action, but should be mad 
the principal motive of action, and what he preached in 
words he preached still more impressively and zealously 
in deeds. He set the first and greatest example of a life 
wholly governed and guided by the passion of humanity, 
The very scheme and plan of his life differed from that 
of other men. He had no personal prospects, no fortune 
to push, no ambitions. A good man before had been 
understood to be one who in the pursuit of his own per- 
sonal happiness is careful to consider also the happiness of 
those around him, declines all prosperity gained at their 
expense, employs his leisure in relieving some of their 
wants, and who, lastly, in some extreme need or danger 
of those connected with him, his relations or his country, 
consents to sacrifice his own life or welfare to theirs. In 
this scheme of life humanity in its rudimentary forms ol 
family feeling or patriotism enters as a restraining or regu: 
lating principle; only in the extreme case does it become 
the mainspring of action. What with other good mer 
was the extreme case, with Christ was the rule. In many 
countries and at many different times the lives of heroes 
had been offered up on the altar of filial or parental o1 
patriotic love. A great impulse had overmastered the 
personal interests, the love of life and of the pleasure 
of life, had yielded to a higher motive; the names 


| Positive Morality 153 
those who had made the great oblation had been held in 
honour by succeeding ages, the place where it was made 
pointed out, the circumstances of it proudly recounted. 
‘Such a sacrifice, the crowning act of human goodness 
when it rises above itself, was made by Christ, not in some 
‘moment of elevation, not in some extreme emergency, but 
habitually ; this is meant when it is said, he went about 
doing good; nor was the sacrifice made for relative or 
friend or country, but for all everywhere who bear the 
name of man. 

_ Those who stood by watching his career felt that his 
teaching, but probably still more his deeds, were creating 
a revolution in morality and were setting to all previous 
legislations, Mosaic or Gentile, that seal which is at once 
Tatification and abolition. While they watched, they felt 
the rules and maxims by which they had hitherto lived 
die into a higher and larger life. They felt the freedom 
which is gained by destroying selfishness instead of re- 
straining it, by crucifying the flesh instead of circumcising 
it. In this new rule they perceived all old rules to be 
included, but so included as to seem insignificant, axioms 
of moral science, beggarly elements. It no longer seemed 
to them necessary to prohibit in detail and with laborious 
enumeration the different acts by which a man may injure 
his neighbour. Now that they had at heart as the first 
of interests the happiness of all with whom they might be 
brought in contact, they no longer required a law, for 
they had acquired a quick and sensitive instinct, which 
Testrained them from doing harm. But while the new 
morality incorporated into itself the old, how much ampler 
was its compass! A new continent in the moral globe 
was discovered. Positive morality took its place by the 
side of Negative. To the duty of not doing harm, which 
may be called justice, was added the duty of doing good, 
which may properly receive the distinctively Christian 
name of Charity. 

_ And this is the meaning of that prediction which cer- 
tain shepherds reported to have come to them in a mystic 
song heard under the open sky of night (“ carmine perfidize 
quod post nulla arguet etas ”’) proclaiming the commence- 
ment of an era of “ good will to men.” 





CHAPTER XVII 


THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY 

















Tuus there rises before us the image of a common- 
wealth in which a universal enthusiasm not only takes the 
place of law, but by converting into a motive what wa: 
before but a passive restraint, enlarges the compass of 
morality and calls into existence a number of positiv 
obligations which under the dominion of law had na 
been acknowledged. It is a commonwealth sustained ani 
governed by the desire existing in the mind of each of it 
members to do as much good as possible to every othe 
member. 
Doubtless, a commonwealth fully answering this de 
scription has never existed on the earth, nor can exist 
It isan ideal. True that Christ always spoke of the king 
dom of God as an actual and present commonwealth inte 
which men were actually introduced by baptism. Never 
theless he fully acknowledged its ideal character, and 
therefore spoke of it as at the same time future and stil 
waiting to be realised. Those who were already member: 
of God’s kingdom were notwithstanding instructed to pra) 
that that kingdom might come. And if we look at the 
facts around us we shall discover that the kingdom ¢ 
God has always been in this manner at once present ani 
future, at once realised and waiting to be realised. It 
other words, it has always fallen far short of its ideal, ani 
yet it has never ceased in some degree to resemble thai 
ideal. It has never ceased to abide by the positive ot 
active scheme of morality, and to occupy itself more o 
less zealously with works of beneficence and charity. Wi. 
may go further, and say that the Christian view of moralit 
has become universal, so that now no man is called or con 
sidered good, whether he bear the Christian name or no 
152 


: The Law of Philanthropy 153 


vho does not in some form or other exhibit an active love 
or his kind and go out of his way to do good. 
_ The enthusiasm of humanity in Christians is not only 
heir supreme but their only law. It has been remarked 
hat Christ’s plan was to kindle in the hearts of his 
ollowers a feeling which should dictate to them the right 
sourse of action in all circumstances. It follows that 
vhen we have considered the nature of this feeling we have 
‘xhausted the subject of Christian morality. If Christ 
lelivered any other more special commands besides the 
‘ommand to love, they must be either deducible from it, 
f it be the law-making power which he pronounced it to 
9e, or if they do not agree with its dictates—if those who 
yave the genuine enthusiasm in them find that the literal 
ybedience to Christ’s special commands is in any instance 
econcilable with obedience to his universal command— 
hey must bear in mind the boldness with which he him- 
elf treated the Mosaic law while acknowledging it to be 
ivine. They must remember that principles last for ever, 
gut special rules pass away with the things and conditions 
0 which they refer. As Christ relaxed the sabbatical 
ybligation by referring to the object of the ordinance—the 
Sabbath was made for man—so should his disciples boldly 
ind reverently interpret his precepts by the light of the 
Bop which governed them, the principle of humanity, 
‘obey as freemen not as slaves. 
“But to us considering what are likely to be the charac- 
eristics, the modes of life and action, of a person in whom 
he Enthusiasm of Humanity has been kindled, these 
pecial commands of Christ are likely to afford the very 
mformation we seek. A principle is best seen in its prac- 
ical applications, a rule in its examples. It may be said, 
hen, that besides the great and one law of love Christ 
jelivered three special injunctions. 

First he enjoined his followers to apply themselves to 
elieving the physical needs and distresses of their fellow- 
reatures. Next he commanded them to add new mem- 
yers to the Christian Church, and especially to seek the 
amendment of the neglected, outcast, and depraved part 
af society. Thirdly he enjoined them to forgive all per- 





154 Ecce Homo 









sonal injuries. These three injunctions we will pro 
to consider in order. 

The command to relieve physical distress is many ti 
repeated. Christians are to give alms; in some cases t 
were commanded to give all their wealth to the poor; 
all cases they were assured that their final acceptance b 
fore the Judge would depend upon the zeal they had show 
in feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and visiti 
the sick. The first definite duty which Christ impose 
upon his followers when they began to form an organise 
society was that of travelling over the whole country i 
order to cure diseases. Lastly, as has been already re 
marked, he was himself constantly and principally “7 
pied in ‘the same way. 

No rule of life is more plainly deducible from the gene 
law of love than this. Higher benefits may be confe 
upon men than the alleviation of their physical sufferi 
but there can be no more natural expression and no be 
test of humanity. Nothing is more certain than that 
who can witness suffering without an attempt to reliey 
it, when such attempt is not hopeless, is not humane. 
proposition is one of the most obvious that can be ex: 
pressed in words; all nations not utterly savage have ir 
a sense admitted it. Christ’s command had nothing in 
which to a heathen could have seemed novel, and yet, 
the other hand, it was not at all superfluous. For thou 
there was humanity among the ancients, there was 
philanthropy. In other words, humanity was known 
them as an occasional impulse, ‘but not as a standing 
of life. A case of distress made painfully manifest and 
prominent would often excite compassion; the feeli 
might lead to a single act of beneficence; but it had ni 
strength enough to give birth to reflection or to develog 
itself into a speculative compassion for other persons 
equally distressed whose distresses were not equally mani- 
fest. Exceptional sufferings had therefore a chance of 
relief, but the ordinary sufferings which affected whole 
classes of men excited no pity, and were treated as pa 
of the natural order of things, providential dispensation 
which it might even be impious to endeavour to coun 






The Law of Philanthropy 155 


ct. Let us consider the example of slavery. There 
yere in antiquity kind masters who refrained from treat- 
ag their slaves with cruelty; when a slave was to be 
junished, it was not hard to find good-humoured “ preca- 
ores ” who would intercede for him; there was humanity 
nough to cause sometimes a general feeling of displeasure 
yhen a slave was treated with outrageous cruelty. But 
10 general protest was ever made against the cruelty 
£ slave-owners. No man, still less any body of men, 
hought it worth while to give time and trouble either to 
leviating the miseries of the slave or to mitigating the 
iarshness of the institution itself. If it became clear to 
ny, as to a few philosophers it did, that the institution 
yas unjust, and if unjust then of necessity a monstrous 
njustice, they quietly noted the fact, but never stirred 
and or foot to remedy it, and the majority of mankind 
vere not sufficiently interested in each other’s happiness 
o discover the existence of any such social injustice at all. 
When this lethargy passed away and humanity became 
| passion in the first Christians, it issued by the lips of 
Shrist an imperative ordinance making the sorrows of 
ach a burden upon all. Henceforth it became the duty 
f every man gravely to consider the condition of the 
vorld around him. It became his duty to extend his 
egards beyond the circle of his personal interests, and 
jometimes to open the gate of his privacy and relieve the 
yeggar who might be lying outside full of sores. Nor was 
1e to wait till the misery of some fellow-creature forced 
tself rudely upon his notice and affected his sensibility. 
Jn the contrary he was to bear habitually in his heart the 
oad of the world’s distress. Pity was to be henceforth 
10 stranger greeted occasionally, but a familiar companion 
ind bosom-friend. Nor was he to make philanthropy] 
he amusement of his leisure, but one of the occupations’ 
yf his life. He was to give alms; that is, he was to relieve 
lis fellow-creature at the cost of some personal loss to 
uimself, and Christ held that a despicable Christianity 
which flung to the poor some unregarded superfluity; he 
valued more the mite which the widow spared out of her 
overty. 

























156 Ecce Homo 


The obligation of philanthropy is for all ages, but if : 
consider the particular modes of philanthropy which Chr 
prescribed to his followers we shall find that they w 
suggested by the special conditions of that age. The se 
spirit of love which dictated them, working in this ¢ 
upon the same problems, would find them utterly insu 
cient. No man who loves his kind can in these days 2 
content with waiting as a servant upon human miser 
when it is in so many cases possible to anticipate a 
avert it. Prevention is better than cure, and it is ne 
clear to all that a large part of human suffering is pre 
ventible by improved social arrangements. Charity wi 
now, if it be genuine, fix upon this enterprise as grea 
more widely and permanently beneficial, and therefo 
more Christian than the other. It will not, indeed, ne 
lect the lower task of relieving and consoling those wh 
whether through the errors and unskilful arrangemen 
of society or through causes not yet preventible, he 
actually fallen into calamity. Its compassion will be 
the deeper, its relief more prompt and zealous, because 
does not generally, as former generations did, recogni 
such calamities to be part of man’s inevitable destiny. 
will hurry with the more painful eagerness to remedy evi 
which it feels ought never to have befallen. But when’ 
has done all which the New Testament enjoins, it will fee 
that its task is not half fulfilled. When the sick man hi 
been visited and everything done which skill and assiduit 
can do to cure him, modern charity will go on to consid 
the causes of his malady, what noxious influence bese 
ting his life, what contempt of the laws of health in hi 
diet or habits, may have caused it, and then to enquin 
whether others incur the same dangers and may be warne 
in time. When the starving man has been relievet 
modern charity enquires whether any fault in the socia 
system deprived him of his share of nature’s bounty, an 
unjust advantage taken by the strong over the weak, ar 
rudeness or want of culture in himself wrecking his virtu 
and his habits of thrift. The truth is, that though th 
morality of Christ is theoretically perfect and not subject 
as the Mosaic morality was, to a further development 


The Law of Philanthropy =_1§7 


practical morality of the first Christians has been in a 
eat degree rendered obsolete by the later experience of 
iankind, which has taught us to hope more and under- 
ike more for the happiness of our fellow-creatures. The 
mmand to care for the sick and suffering remains as 
ivine as ever and as necessary as ever to be obeyed, but 
es become, like the Decalogue, an elementary part of 
orality, early learnt, and not sufficient to satisfy the 
hristian enthusiasm. As the early Christians learnt that 
was not enough to do no harm and that they were bound 
) give meat to the hungry and clothing to the naked, we 
ave learnt that a still further obligation lies upon us to 
revent, if possible, the pains of hunger and nakedness 
‘om being ever felt. 
This last duty was as far beyond the conception of the 
liest Christians as the second was beyond the concep- 
on of those for whom Moses legislated. Many things 
oncealed it from the eye of the conscience. First the 
bscure social position of the first Christians. They be- 
ynged for the most part to the subject races of the Roman 
pire. The government of affairs, the ordering of the 
cial system, was in other hands. Their masters were 
ealous and reserved. Little concerted action of any kind 
yas allowed to them. Any protest they might have made 
ainst social inequalities and injustices would have died 
way utterly unheeded. There was no channel through 
yhich those who discerned an evil could communicate 
ith those who had the power of removing it. At sucha 
ime reforms were out of the question. It would have 
yeen simply useless and perilous to lay a hand upon the 
Be gerous wheels of the social system which crushed the 
ives and limbs of men at every revolution. All that 
tld be done was to be at hand to tend the victims, to 
escue as many wounded as possible, and shed a tear over 
he dead. 
But the principal reason why the philanthropy pre- 
cribed by the Gospel is so rudimentary was probably a 
lifferent one. The first Christians were probably not so 
nuch hopeless of accomplishing great social reforms as 
mnripe for the conception of them. The instinct of com- 


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158 Ecce Homo 


passion, which joined to a sanguine spirit of hope p 
duces the modern systematic Reformer, was newborn ¢ 
infantine in them. It had as yet everything to learn, bt 
as to the evils which were to be cured and as to the po 
bility and means of curing them. On both points 
ancients laboured under a blindness which we can o 
understand by an effort of reflection. They did 
easily recognise evil to be evil, and they did not belie 
or rather they had never dreamed, that it could be cu 
Habit dulls the senses ‘and puts the critical faculty 
sleep. The fierceness and hardness of ancient mann 
is apparent to us, but the ancients themselves were r 
shocked by sights which were familiar to them. To 
it is sickening to think of the gladiatorial show, of # 
massacres common in Roman warfare, of the infantici 
practised by grave and respectable citizens, who d 
not merely condemn their children to death, but often 
practice, as they well knew, to what was still worse 
life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded 
gladiatorial show as we regard a hunt; the news of t 
slaughter of two hundred thousand Helvetians by Cz 
or half-a-million Jews by Titus excited in his mind a 
of triumph; infanticide committed by a friend appea 
to him a prudent measure of household economy. 
shake off this paralysis of the moral sense produced t 
habit, to see misery to be misery and cruelty to be cruelt 
requires not merely a strong but a trained and ma 
compassion. It was probably as much as the 
Christians could learn at once to relieve the sick, 
starving, and the desolate. Only after centuries of th 
simple philanthropy could they learn to criticise # 
fundamental usages of society itself, and acquire cours 
to pronounce that, however deeply-rooted and time 
honoured, they were in many cases shocking to humanity 
Closely connected with this insensibility to the 
character of common usages is a positive unwillingness 
reform them. The argument of prejudice is twofole 
It is not only that what has lasted a long time must b 
right, but also that what has lasted a long time, rig 
or wrong, must be intended to continue. That reveren 


: The Law of Philanthropy 159 


or existing usages, which is always strong in human 
ature, was far stronger in antiquity than it isnow. The 
yelief in the wisdom of ancestors, which seems to be 
vaused by the curious delusion that ancestors must needs 
ye old and therefore deeply-experienced men, was stronger 
mong the ancients than among the moderns, because 
heir impression of their ancestors was derived not from 
uistory but from poetry. They traced their institutions 
© semi-divine or inspired legislators, and held it almost 
mpious to change what came to them marked with such 
uthority, while we, however proud we may be of our 
meestors, do not disguise from ourselves that they were 
arbarians, and can hardly fancy their handiwork in- 
apable of improvement. 
_ Thus the Enthusiasm of Humanity, if it move us in this 
ge to consider the physical needs of our fellow-creatures, 
jill not be contented with the rules and methods which 
atisfied those who first felt its power. Breathed from 
he lips of Christ or descending from heaven at the Pente- 
ostal feast, it entered into men who had grown to man- — 
ood in a cruel and hard-hearted world and who were 
customed to selfishness. When Love was waked in his 
ungeon and his fetters struck off, he must at first have 
und his joints too stiff for easy motion. It entered into 
e subjects of a world-wide tyranny, who never raised 
aeir thoughts to large or public interests, over which they ~ 
ould not hope to have influence. It entered into men of » 
ow cultivation, who had no conception of progress or ~ 
f the purpose that runs through the ages, no high ideal © 
= happiness that the race may attain through the 
bours of the good of every generation in its cause, no 
ispicion that the whole framework of society compared 
) what it might be was as the hut of a savage to a Grecian 
ample. It entered into men who in their simplicity 
svered the barbaric past and placed behind them that 
olden age for which they should have looked forwards. 
nd therefore it could but rouse them to a philanthropy 
hich, though glorious in the spirit that animated it, 
as faint and feeble in its enterprises, the half-despairing 
‘tempt of a generation which had more love than hope. 


: 
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160 Ecce Homo 


We are advanced by eighteen hundred years beyo 
the apostolic generation. All the narrowing influence 
which have been enumerated have ceased to operal 
Our minds are set free, so that we may boldly critic 
the usages around us, knowing them to be but imperfi 
essays towards order and happiness, and no divinely 
supernaturally ordained constitution which it would 
impious to change. We have witnessed improvemer 
in physical well-being which incline us to expect furth 
progress and make us keen-sighted to detect the evils ar 
miseries that remain. The channels of communicati 
between nations and their governments are free, so 
the thought of the private philanthropist may mould 
whole community. And, finally, we have at our dispe 
a vast treasure of science, from which we may discov 
what physical well-being is and on what conditions 
depends. In these circumstances the Gospel precepts 
philanthropy become utterly insufficient. It is not x 
enough to visit the sick and give alms to the poor. ¥V 
may still use the words as a kind of motto, but we mu 
understand under them a multitude of things which 
do not express. If we would make them express t 
whole duty of philanthropy in this age, we must tre 
them as preachers sometimes treat the Decalogue, wh 
they represent it as containing by implication a whe 
system of morality. Christ commanded his first follow: 
to heal the sick and give alms, but he commands t 
Christians of this age, if we may use the expression, to i 
vestigate the causes of all physical evil, to master tl 
science of health, to consider the question of educati 
with a view to health, the question of labour with a vie 
to health, the question of trade with a view to healt 
and while all these investigations are made, with ff 
expense of energy and time and means, to work out 
rearrangement of human life in accordance with 
results they give. 

Thus ought the Enthusiasm of Humanity to work 
these days, and thus, plainly enough, it does work. . 
investigations are constantly being made, these refort 
commenced. But perhaps it is rather among those w 


The Law of Philanthropy 161 


influenced by general philanthropy and generosity, 
that is, by indirect or secondary Christianity, than among 
os who profess to draw the Enthusiasm directly from 
ts fount, that this spirit reigns. Perhaps those who 
uppear the most devoted Christians are somewhat jealous 
of what they may consider this worldly machinery. They 
think they must needs be most Christian when they stick 
nost closely to the New Testament, and that what is 
atterly absent from the New Testament cannot possibly 
ye an important part of Christianity. A great mistake, 
irising from a wide-spread paralysis of true Christian 
eeling in the modern Church! The New Testament is 
j0t the Christian law; the precepts of Apostles, the special 
sommands of Christ, are not the Christian law. To make 
them such is to throw the Church back into that legal 
vystem from which Christ would have set it free. The 
christian law is the spirit of Christ, that Enthusiasm of 

Semanity which he declared to be the source from which 

] right action flows. What it dictates, and that alone, 
s law for the Christian. And if the progress of science 
ind civilisation has put into our hands the means of bene- 
iting our kind more and more comprehensively than the 
irst Christians could hope to do—if instead of undoing a 
ittle harm and comforting a few unfortunates we have 
he means of averting countless misfortunes and raising, 
by the right employ ment of our knowledge and power of 
ontrivance, the general standard of happiness—we are 
10t to enquire whether the New Testament commands us 
0 use these means, but whether the spirit of humanity 

mands it. 

But, say the cautious, is it safe to follow a mere en- 
husiasm? If Christ is to be believed, it is not safe to 
ollow anything else. According to him this Spirit was 
xpressly given to guide men into all truth. But, they 
will rejom—and here the truth comes out—we like to feel 
he stay of a written precept; we are not conscious of any 
uch ardent impulse directing us infallibly what to do. 
m reply to which what can we do but repeat the question 
yf St. Paul, “ Into what then were ye baptised? ” 





CHAPTER XVIII 
THE LAW OF EDIFICATION 


PHILANTHROPY is the first and easiest lesson in positive 
morality. It is a duty in which all Christian sects agree 
and which with more or less zeal they perform. The 
means used may differ; the means used in this age differ 
widely from those used in the first ages; but the obliga 
tion which the first Christians acknowledged is substan 
tially the same as that acknowledged now. When the} 
visited the sick and made provision for widows ane 
orphans and gave alms to the poor, they were doing to tht 
best of their light and knowledge what philanthropists o 
the present day do when they study the science of physica 
well-being, search into the causes of disease and suffering 
and endeavour systematically to raise the standard o 
happiness to the highest possible point. 

Did the Enthusiasm of Humanity rest content witl 
this? It might have done so. Perhaps there are som 
who believe that this is in fact the substance of Christianity 
and that all the rest has been overlaid upon the origina 
system. This is not true, and it will hardly seem plausibl 
to a reader who has given even a general assent thus fa 
to the results of the present investigation. But we shal 
find it easier to understand what the substance of Chris 
tianity really is, if we consider attentively what Chris 
tianity would have been and how it would have worked i 
this theory of it were true. How the persons who holt 
this theory regard Christianity we may make clear to our 
selves by a comparison. The present century has wit 
nessed a remarkable softening of manners. A number 0 
cruel practices and severities, that excited no disgust : 
hundred years ago, have now been either swept away a 
intolerable or are reluctantly tolerated from a feeling o 

162 


The Law of Edification 163 


Eessity. Among these are the torture of the wheel, the 
pillory, the punishment of death. And in private life 
during the same period men have greatly advanced in 
tenderness, sympathy, and unwillingness to inflict pain. 
This improvement was doubtless caused by the decay of 
feudal, chivalrous, and semi-barbaric institutions which 
had cherished hard and warlike habits of life. Society in 
the last century entered upon a new period. For this 
new period there arose new legislators, and it may prob- 
ably be said that the fashion of gentleness in feelings and 
manners was introduced mainly through the influence of 
Jean Jacques Rousseau. 

Now the first century, like the eighteenth, was a period 
of transition. It was a period when for the first time the 
civilised nations of the world lived together in almost un- 
broken peace. War had ceased to be the main business 
‘of life, the support of virtue and almost the only means 
by which eminent virtue could show itself. In these cir- 
cumstances the world was prepared for, was calling for, a 
theory of virtue which should be adapted to its new con- 
dition. It wanted a new pursuit in place of war, a pur- 
suit in which, as before in war, the moral feelings might 
find satisfaction and in which heroism might be displayed. 
Christ, it may be maintained, was the social legislator who 
appeared in answer to this call. He induced a large 
number of people by his eloquence and enthusiasm to 
devote themselves to philanthropy. He opened their eyes 
to the suffering and horrors of which the world was full, 
and pointed out to them a noble and satisfying occupa- 
tion for their energies and a path to the truest glory in 
the enterprise of alleviating this misery. 

_ There is no doubt that a philanthropic movement such 
as is here supposed was possible and would have been 
highly beneficial in the first century. As five centuries 
before, a ferment in the Greek mind, arising out of a 
general advance in civilisation and the influence of several 
remarkable men, led to the appearance in the world of an 
entirely new character which has never since disappeared 
—the sophist or philosopher, so it was natural enough that 
in the first century of the Christian era philanthropists 























164 Ecce Homo 


should be heard of for the first time, and that they shoul 
take their rise out of a moral ferment excited by a grez 
preacher. A sect of philanthropists might have sprea 
everywhere, and gradually influenced rulers, and by thi 
means manners might have been considerably softened 
The Christians were no doubt such a sect, but were they 
merely this? Suppose the philanthropical scheme to b 
far more successful than it was likely to be, suppose it te 
succeed perfectly in producing physical comfort every- 
where, and banishing from human life all forms of pair 
and suffering, such a result would certainly not havi 
been satisfactory to Christ. He described in one of his 
parables a man such as philanthropy might produce if it 
were perfectly successful, a man enjoying every physical 
comfort and determining - to give himself up to enjoymen 
but he describes him rather with horror than with satis- 
faction. And though so much of his life was passed in 
relieving distress, we never find him representing physica 
happiness as a desirable condition; on the contrary, most 
of his beatitudes are pronounced upon those who suffer. 
The ideal of the economist, the ideal of the Old Testament 
writers, does not appear to be Christ’s. He feeds the 
poor, but it is not his great object to bring about a state 
of things in which the poorest shall be sure of a meal; he 
recalls dead men to life, but his wisdom does not, like 
Solomon’s, carry length of days in her right hand, and ir 

her left hand riches and honour. Rather does it carry 
with it suffering, persecution, and the martyr’s death. 
He corrects him who said, Blessed are they who shall eat 
bread in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God does 
not exist for the sake of eating and drinking. He preaches 
peace, and yet he says, I am not come to send peace but 
a sword. 

The paradox is not very difficult to explain. A good 
parent will be careful of the physical condition of hi 
child, will tend him assiduously in sickness, relieve 
wants, and endeavour in every way to make ‘him happy. 
But a good parent will not rest content with seeing hi 
child comfortable and secure from pain. He will con 
sider that other and greater things than physical comfo 


The Law of Edification 165 


re to be procured for him, and for the sake of these greater 
ings he will even sacrifice some of his comforts and see 
ith satisfaction that the child suffers a certain amount of 
pain and wants some pleasures. The affection which pets 
and pampers its object is not excessive, as it is sometimes 
described, but a feeble affection, or at least the affection 
of a feeble nature. Now the love of Christ for human 
ture was no such feeble affection. It was not an 
ceedingly keen sensibility which made him feel more 
infully than other men the sufferings of which the 
orld is full. It was a powerful, calm, and contemplative 
we. It was a love of men for what they may be, a love 
the ideal man in each man, or, as Christ himself might 
we said, a love of the image of God in each man. Ac- 
rdingly the Enthusiasm of Humanity in him did not 
pose to itself principally to procure gratifications and 
ae for the senses of men, but to make the divine 
age more glorious in them and to purge it as far as 
possible of impurities. 
That ideal which Christ contemplated directly in’ God 
is followers found in him. And thus arises the second 
t obligation of Positive Morality, the obligation, 
namely, to use every means to raise men to the moral 
levation of Christ. This obligation was brought home to 
the Christian by the natural working of the Enthusiasm of 
Humanity i inhim. Excited as it was by the contemplation 
of Christ, it could not be contented with diffusing physical 
well-being. He who had himself become humane desired 
ieeed that others should be happy, but still more that 
they too should become humane. This dictate of the 
Christian spirit Christ threw into the form of a special 
ae when he bade his disciples go everywhere, not 
erely healing diseases, but also proclaiming g the kingdom 
of God and baptising. It was natural that the command 
x take this particular form, because, as we have 















Christ regarded it as essential to the diffusion of 

e humanity “that men should form themselves into a 

ciety of which humanity should be the law, and that 

hey should signalise their entrance into it by undergoing 
a special rite of purification. 





166 Ecce Homo 


But here again we remark that the command is limit 
by the peculiar condition of the nascent Church, and 
if it were performed to the utmost the Enthusiasm 
Humanity would still remain entirely unsatisfied. The: 
comes a time when the work of baptism has been alread} 
accomplished. We, for example, live in the midst of 
baptised community; the command has become for 
unnecessary or rather impossible to be fulfilled. But 
meet the new circumstances, though Christ is silent, 
spirit of Christ issues a new command. The Enthusiasm 
of Humanity tells us that though all are baptised all 
not yet truly humane. It may be true that almost 
are conscious of impulses and compunctions which are ng 








directly or indirectly to Christianity, but the glowi 

humanity which alone Christ valued is surely not ev: 

common, much less universal, among the baptised. To 
rekindle this in those who have lost it, or in those who 
though nominally Christians have never really conceiv 

it, or in those who have adopted one of the countless per- 
versions of Christianity, and have never understood thai 
this enthusiasm is the true Christian law, here is work 
for the Christian concerning which Christ left no com- 
mand because it could not arise in the infant Church, 
As early, however, as the Apostolic age itself, it had begun 
to be the principal occupation of Christians. St. Paul’s 
Epistles throughout regard the Christian Enthusiasm as 
liable to remission, depression, and languor. Continually 
therefore he exhorts the Christians to whom he writes to 
remember their ideal. His admonitions to activity in 
philanthropical works are brief and few though always 
earnest; but when he endeavours to keep alive their 
humanity, when he admonishes them to excite and cherish 
it in each other, then he is copious and vehement. This 
is the subject nearest his heart. His anxiety is not so 
much to hear that the widows and orphans are duly sup- 
plied, and that within the circle of the Christian com- 
munity want is disappearing and the ills of life are sensibly 
diminished, as to be informed that his converts are con- 
forming gradually more and more to their ideal. This 
conformity he expresses by various figures of speech, 


The Law of Edification 167 


It is to “ put on Christ,” “to put on the new man, the 
new Adam ”; it is “ to have Christ dwelling in the heart,” 
i Christ formed within”; it is “ to fill up the measure of 
the stature of the fulness of Christ.” 

So important a duty necessarily received a name. As 
the moral science .of that time furnished no term which 
could describe it, the Christians denoted it by a meta- 
phorical expression which has passed into modern 
Janguages. It has been remarked that the Christian 
‘summum bonum was a social one; it was the welfare of 
the Christian society. The whole duty of the Christian 
was to fill satisfactorily his place in that society. Now it 
is a universal usage of language that the building in which 
‘any society meets may be put for the society itself, and 
‘vice versa that the building may be called after the society. 
The word house means sometimes the building in which a 
family lives, sometimes the family that lives in such a 
building; a college is sometimes a building in which learn- 
‘ing is cultivated, sometimes the society that cultivate 

learning in such a building. The same remark applies to 
‘all similar words, such as club, bank, hospital, city. 
Among others it applies to the word church, which in 
like manner may be used either to describe a building or 
a society. This inveterate habit of language indicates 
the intimate association which forms itself in every mind 
between the two notions of a corporation and an edifice. 
No one can speak long in impassioned or rhetorical style 
about any society whatever without introducing meta- 
phors drawn from architecture. The Christian writers 
fell immediately into the practice, and in doing so followed 
the example of Christ who said, “ Upon this rock will I 
build my church.” In this style of language, then, as 
the Church is a building, so each member of it is a stone, 
and the prosperity of the Church is expressed by the 
orderly arrangement and secure cementing of the stones. 
It follows that the labour of making men Christians and 
inspiring them with the Enthusiasm of Humanity is 
nothing else but the arrangement and cementing of the 
stones. In other words, it is building. This then was 
the name which the Christians adopted. “Let every- 
















168 Ecce Homo 


thing be done,” says St. Paul, “ with a view to building. 
The phrase has been adopted into modern languages, ye 
in such a way as to destroy all its force. Instead of bei 
translated, it has been directly transferred from 
ecclesiastical Latin of the first centuries in the form 
edification. The Christian law, then, which we are no 
discussing, may be called the Law of Edification. 
This second Christian obligation—the obligation, as 
same Apostle expresses it, to “‘ provoke others to love ” 
is as much greater than the obligation of philanthropy asi 
is a better thing for a man to be good than to be prosperous 
And in all cases of conflict between the two obligatio: 
the greater of course suspends the less. Christiani 
therefore is not identical with philanthropy, nor does it 
always dictate the course of action which may directl 
issue in happiness and prosperity for others. It reg 
temporal prosperity as no indispensable or unmixed bless- 
ing; its summum bonum is that healthy condition of the 
soul in which, influenced by the instinct of humanity, it 
becomes incapable of sin. This healthy condition is calle 
in the dialect of Christianity “life ” or “ salvation,” an 
Christ was in the habit of declaring it to be a blessing in 
comparison of which temporal happiness is utterly insigni- 
ficant. There is nothing, he says, which a man can give in 
exchange for his soul; if he gain the whole world and lose 
that, what is he the better? All manner of physical suffer~ 
ing, therefore, is to be cheerfully endured rather than that 
the life of the soul should be sacrificed or enfeebled. If. 
danger assail the soul through the right hand or the right 
eye, and it can be averted in no other way, we are to cut off 
the hand or pluck out the eye. He gives us at the same 
time to understand that not only have we sometimes to 
choose between temporal happiness and spiritual health, 
but that suffering and sorrow have often a direct tendency 
to produce spiritual health. They may serve the purpose 
of a wholesome discipline. Accordingly he pronounces a 
blessing on those that mourn, and speaks ominously and 
forebodingly of the temptations attending riches and a 
state of temporal prosperity. 4 
If we are not to regard prosperity as the first of bless- | 


? 


: The Law of Edification 169 


4 for ourselves, if we are not to seek it in preference to 
everything else for ourselves, if we are to acquiesce some- 
times for ourselves in a state of suffering, it follows that 
ought to do so for our neighbours. A humane man 
will certainly be pleased to see his fellow-creatures en- 
joying comfort, but if he be deeply humane he will never 
be satisfied with this; if their prosperity last long and be 
ana!loyed he will even become dissatisfied, he will jealously 
watch for the appearance of those vices which prosperity 
breeds — insolence, selfishness, superficiality in thought, 
mfirmity in purpose, and a luxurious baseness which is 
the death of the soul. If he discern these vices, if they 
show themselves visibly, the humane man may at last 
some to call out for sorrow; or, if this be too boldly said, 
yet at least if to men thus demoralised calamities happen 
at last, and wholesome labours be imposed, and they be 
made to support some stern agony of endurance, he will 
witness the visitation with a solemn satisfaction, and far 
more than he rejoiced before to see their pleasure will he 
exult to see the gates of that delusive Paradise closed 
again, and the fiery cherubim return to guard from man 
the fruit he cannot see without temptation nor taste with- 
out ruin. 
Christ, therefore, is not merely the originator of philan- 
thropy; and indeed the Church has sustained another part 
on earth besides that of the Sister of Charity. She has not 
merely sat by sick-beds, and played the Lady Bountiful to 
poor people, and rushed between meeting armies on the 
field of battle to reconcile the combatants by reminding 
them of their brotherhood. Christianity is not quite the 
mild and gentle system it is sometimes represented to be. 
Christ was meek and lowly, but he was something beside. 
What was he when he faced the leading men among his 
countrymen and denounced them as a brood of vipers on 
their way to the infernal fires? That speech which has 
been quoted above, “ I am not come to send peace but a 
sword,” will appear, when considered, to be the most tre- 
mendous speech ever uttered. Burke’s wish that the war 
with France which he foresaw might prove a long war 
has been stigmatised as horrible. It was certainly an 













170 Ecce Homo 


awful wish; it may well cause those who look only 
physical and immediate happiness to shudder; but f 
Burke’s premises it was justifiable. Christ’s solemn r 
lution to persevere in what he felt to be his mission, 
spite of the clearest foreknowledge of the suffering 
endless bloodshed which his perseverance would ca 
to that race of which he was the martyr, was ground 
on a similar confidence that the evil was preparatory to 
greater good, and that if some happiness was to be sacr 
ficed, it would be the price of a great moral advan 
But the resolution was notwithstanding a most awful o 
and should impressively teach us not to confound Chri 
tianity with mere philanthropy, not to suppose that w 
is shocking is of necessity unchristian, not to confo 
warmheartedness, bonhommie, or feminine sensibilitie 
with the Enthusiasm of Humanity. 

It has been remarked above that the machinery 
philanthropy among the early Christians had all the rud 
ness which it might be expected to have at a time of lit 
freedom, either of action or organisation. Instead 
studying comprehensively the science of human well-bein 
and devising systematic methods of producing and in: 
creasing it, they contented themselves with tending th 
sick, pensioning widows and orphans, and distributi 
alms. ‘The means they adopted for performing the seco: 
great obligation, that of converting mankind to Christiat 
humanity or holiness, were equally simple and below thi 
requirements and powers of the present age. They uset 
the one instrument of direct moral suasion. To thi 
heathen they preached, to those already baptised th 
prophesied. They related to their converts the orincipl 
facts of Christ’s life, they told the story of his death anc 
resurrection, they instructed them in the morality anc 
theology he had given to his Church. More effectively 
than this, but without organisation or contrivance, there 
worked within the Church and outwards round its whol 
circumference the living, diffusive, assimilative power 0} 
the Christian Humanity. As there are still many Chris 
tians who cling to the old modes of philanthropy becaust 


they are the only modes prescribed by the New Testament 
4 


4; 


The Law of Edification ra 


: may the modern Church be fairly charged with confining 
itself too exclusively to preaching and catechising in the 
work of conversion and edification. Preaching and cate- 
chising may still be useful and important, but many other 
instruments are now at our command, and these instru- 
ments it is none the less the duty of Christians to use 
because the New Testament says nothing about them. 
The enthusiasm can indeed hardly be kindled except 
by a personal influence acting through example or im- 
passioned exhortation. When Christ would kindle it in 
his disciples he breathed on them and said, “ Receive the 
Holy Spirit ”; intimating by this great symbolical act that 
life passes into the soul of a man, as it were by contagion 
from another living soul. It may indeed come to a man 
through the mere bounty of God, but of means that men 
can use to kindle it there is none beside their personal 
influence passing either directly from man to man or 
diffused by means of books. Contrivance, however, and 
organisation may do much in marshalling this personal 
influence, in bringing it to bear upon the greatest number 
and in the most effective way; it may also do much in 
preventing men’s natural susceptibility to the enthusiasm 
from being dulled by adverse circumstances, and in giving 
fuel to the enthusiasm when it already burns. As it is the 
duty of Christians to study human well-being systematic- 
ally with a view to philanthropy, so is it their duty with a 
view to edification to consider at large the conditions most 
favourable to goodness, and by what social arrangements 
‘temptations to vice may be reduced to the lowest point 
‘and goodness have the most and the most powerful 
‘motives. Here is a whole field of investigation upon 
‘which Christians are bound to enter; much doubtless has 
been already done in it, but not perhaps with much sys- 
tem, nor has it been sufficiently felt that it is a principal 
part of the work belonging properly to the Church. 

The conditions most favourable to goodness! It will 
‘be well to consider in some detail what these are, remem- 
bering always that by goodness is meant the Christian 
Enthusiasm of Humanity. How may men be made most 
susceptible of this Enthusiasm? 





















172 Ecce Homo 


It has been shown that the attractive power whic 
throughout has acted upon men, which has preserved the 
from that isolation which is the opposite of Christianit 
and which has united them in those communities of cla 
or city or state which were the germs and embryos of 
Universal Christian Republic, is the tie of kindred. n 
state, we have seen, was founded on a fiction of bloog 
relationship, and Christianity uses the dialect of bloo¢ 
relationship when it pronounces all mankind to be brothe ; 
What is true of mankind in general will be found to b 
true in this case of the individual man. He in whom 
family affections have been awakened will have a hear 
most open to the passion of humanity. It is-useless t 
tell a man to love all mankind if he has never loved z 
individual of mankind and only knows by report what lov 
is. It should be recognised that family affection in som 
form is the almost indispensable root of Christianity. 
family affection is rightly called natural, that is to say, 
will come of itself if it be not artificially hindered. If 
becomes therefore a principal duty of Christians to remo ve 
all hindrances out of the way of family affection. 

Now what are these hindrances? They are innumer 
able, arising out of the endless incompatibilities of tempera- 
ment and taste, incompatibilities of natural difference 
and those finer incompatibilities, which are more € : 
quisitely painful and more malignant, arising out of smal 
differences in general resemblance. For the removal of 
such hindrances no general rules can be laid down. In 
resisting and removing them the higher degrees of Chris- 
tian tact win their triumphs. Meanwhile there are other 
hindrances of a simpler kind which are, to an indefini d 
degree, removable and of which some may here be men= 
tioned. We may here mention marriages of interest o 
convenience, the children of which, often originally of d 
and poor organisation, grow up in an atmosphere of cyni 
coldness which speedily kills whatever blossoms of kind- 
liness their nature may put forth. In another class of 
society there rages another terrible destroyer of natu 
affection, hunger. Christ spoke of suffering as a whol 
some discipline, but there is an extreme degree of sufferi 


The Law of Edification 173 


which seems more ruinous to the soul than the most 
mervating prosperity. When existence itself cannot be 
supported without an unceasing and absorbing struggle, 
then there is no room in the heart for any desire but 
the wretched animal instinct of self-preservation, which 
merges in an intense, pitiable, but scarcely blamable 
selfishness. What tenderness, what gratitude, what 
quman virtue can be expected of the man who is holding 
1 wolf by the ears? 

To persons who, from either of these causes or from 
others that might be mentioned, have become destitute of 
qatural affection, preaching and catechising are almost 
aseless. Your declamations will rouse in them no En- 
thusiasm of Humanity, but, it may be, an ecstasy of fright 
or fanaticism. Instruction in morality or theology will 
aot make them moral or religious, but only a little more 
knowing and self-satisfied. A great example of humanity 
put visibly before them may indeed rouse in them the 
sense they want, but it will never have the healthy keen- 
ness and calmness it might have had, if it had been roused 
in the manner appointed by nature. Therefore all Chris- 
tians who take an adequate view of Christian obligations 
will consider that the removal of all such social abuses as 
destroy natural affection, and by doing so kill Christian 
umanity in its germ, is among the first of those obliga- 
tions. 

- But again, where natural affection exists, a peculiar 
perversion of it requires to be guarded against, which 
ften makes it hostile to that very Humanity of which it is 
properly the rudimentary form. It is apt to take a clan- 
nish, exclusive shape, and to inspire not merely no love 
but positive hatred towards those who are without the 
circle of blood-relationship. It has been shown above 
how the very same attraction which created states, iso- 
lated them, created national distinctions, and, arising out 
of national distinctions, a permanent condition of inter- 
national hostility. This state of things is still far indeed 
from being obsolete, and the same abuse exists within the 
bosom of states in another form. Divisions arise, em- 
bittered by superciliousness on the one side and envy on 






174 Ecce Homo 


the other, between the high-born and the low-born, 
other advantages such as wealth and acquired station 
eagerly seized by family affection as an excuse for turnir 
itself into an exclusive partiality. The distinctions the 
selves of birth and wealth are substantial realities whi 
cannot be treated as if they did not exist. There 
superior and inferior breeds of men as of other animals 
and the rich man will be led by his wealth into a mode 
life which must remove him to a certain distance from th 
poor man. The danger is lest the distinction and the 
distance should turn to a moral division, to a separatior 
of interests and sympathies in which Christian union 
perishes. Therefore against all unjust privilege, agai 
all social arrangements which make the prosperity of ont 
man incompatible with the prosperity of another, the 
Christian is bound by his humanity to watch and protest. 
But if this danger also is escaped, and natural affectio: 
be present without exclusiveness, to develop it into a 
full Christian Enthusiasm, there remain many other means 
besides preaching and purely religious instruction. 
these the most important is education, which is certainly 
a far more powerful agent than preaching, inasmuch as 
in the first place it acts upon the human being at an age 
when he is more susceptible of all influences, and par- 
ticularly of moral ones, than he afterwards becomes, and 
in the second place it acts upon him incessantly, intensely, 
and by countless different methods for a series of years, 
whereas preaching acts upon him intermittently, for the 
most part faintly, and by one uniform method. Preaching 
is moral suasion delivered formally at stated intervals, 
In good education there is an equal amount of moral 
suasion, delivered far more impressively because delivered 
to individuals and at the moment when the need arises, 
while besides moral suasion other instruments are em- 
ployed. Of these the principal is Authority, a most 
potent and indispensable agent. We have traced above 
the process by which mankind were ripened for the re- 
ception of Christianity. For many ages peremptory laws 
were imposed upon different nations and enforced by a 
machinery of punishment. During these ages, out of the 


4 










The Law of Edification 175 


hole number of persons who obeyed these laws very few 
ither knew or enquired why they had been imposed. But 
ll the time these nations were forming habits of action 
yhich gradually became so familiar to them thatjthe nations 
who wanted similar habits became to them objects of con- 
‘empt and disgust as savages. At last the time came when 
the hidden principle of all law was revealed and Christian 
qumanity became the self - legislating life of mankind. 
Thus did the Law bring men to Christ. Now what the 
Law did for the race the schoolmaster does for the indi- 
vidual. He imposes rules, assigning a penalty for dis- 
ybedience. Under this rule the pupil grows up, until 
wrder, punctuality, industry, justice and mercy to his 
school-fellows become the habits of his life. Then when 
the time comes, the strict rule relaxes, the pupil is taken 
mto the master’s confidence, his obedience becomes 
reasonable, a living morality. If the teacher be one whose 
= morality attains the standard of the Christian En- 
thusiasm, the pupil is more likely to be initiated into the 
same supreme mystery than if he stood in any other re- 


lation to him. There is no moral influence in the world, 


excepting that occasionally exerted by great_men, com- 
parable to that of a good teacher; there is no position in 


which a man’s merits, considered as moral levers, have 
so much purchase. Therefore the whole question of edu- 
cation—what the method of it should be, what men should 
be employed in it—is pre-eminently a question in which 
Christians are bound by their Humanity to interest them- 
selves. 

Let us advance a step further, and in considering the 
conditions favourable to goodness it will be convenient to 
isolate a particular case. We have before us, then, the 
child of parents to whose mutual love he owes a healthy 
organisation and a fresh flow of natural feeling, to the 
moderate prosperity of whose condition he owes an exemp- 
tion from brutalising anxieties, and who have instilled 
into him no prejudices of caste. He has had a teacher 
who trained him as Providence trained mankind, assuming 
at the proper season the part of Moses, then that of Isaiah, 
then that of the Baptist, ushering him into the very pre- 

























176 Ecce Homo 


sence of Christ. Into that presence he has entered, ar 
we see a young man in whose mind there has ripened 
natural development out of the sense of duty to kindr 
and country a commanding sense of duty to that 
versal Commonwealth of men whose majesty he worshi 
gathered up in the person of its Eternal Sovereign, Ch 
Jesus. Does manhood bring new dangers to such a pel 
son? What are they? And what safeguards can be p 
vided against them? 

The most formidable temptation of manhood is 
which Christ described in a phrase hardly translatable 
pepypvat Biwrexat, To boys and youths work is assigne 
by their parents or tutors. The judicious parent tak 
care not to assign so much work as to make his son. 
slave. We cherish as much as possible the freedom, 
discursiveness of thought and feeling natural to youth 
We cherish it as that which life is likely sooner or later 
diminish, and if we curb it, we do so that it may not e 
haust itself by its own vivacity. But in manhood work 
not assigned to us by others who are interested in our 
welfare, but by a ruthless and tyrannous necessity whic 
takes small account of our powers or our happiness. And 
the source of the happiness of manhood, a family, doubles 
its anxieties. Hence middle life tends continually to 
routine, to the mechanic tracing of a contracted circle 
A man finds or fancies that the care of his own family is 
as much as he can undertake, and excuses himself from 
most of his duties to humanity. In many cases, owing to 
the natural difficulty of obtaining a livelihood in a par 
cular country or to remediable social abuses, such a man 
conduct is justified by necessity, but in many more 
arises from the blindness of natural affection, making i 
difficult for him to think that he has done enough for hi 
family while it is possible for him to do more. Chris 
bids us look to it that we be not weighed down by these 
worldly cares, which indeed if not resisted must evidently 
undo all that Christianity has done and throw men back 
into the clannish condition out of which it redeemed them, 
How many a man who at twenty was full of zeal, high- 
minded designs and plans of a life devoted to humanity 


The Law of Edification 177 


ter the cares of middle life have come upon him and one 
or two schemes contrived with the inexperience of youth 
ave failed, retains nothing of the Enthusiasm with which 
e set out but a willingness to relieve distress whenever 
it crosses his path, and perhaps a habit of devoting an 
nual sum of money to charitable purposes! 

To protect the lives of men from sinking into a routine 
of narrow-minded drudgery, the Christian Church has 
ntroduced the invaluable institution of the Sunday. Fol- 
owing the example of the old Jewish Church, it pro- 
slaims a truce once in seven days to all personal anxieties 

d degrading thoughts about the means of subsistence 

and success in life, and bids us meet together to indulge 
n larger thoughts, to give ourselves time to taste Heaven’s 
sounty, and to drink together out of “ the chalice of the 
srapes of God.” In countries where life is a hard struggle, 
what more precious, more priceless public benefit can be 
magined than this breathing-time, this recurring armistice 
between man and the hostile powers that beset his life, 
this solemn sabbatic festival? Connected with the Sun- 
day is the institution of preaching or, as it is called in the 
New Testament, prophesying. The power of impassioned 
rhetoric over those whose occupations do not leave them 
much time for reading is very great, and when the preacher 
speaks out of the overflowing of a genuine Christian en 
thusiasm, his words will echo in the memories of many 
antil the Sunday comes round again. In periods when 
the pulpits of a country are occupied by the foremost 
en of their time for genius and wisdom this institution 
ay sway and form the whole mind of a nation. 

Besides the Sunday and the institution of preaching 

there exist certain societies formed to war against social, 
political, or moral evils and in various ways to benefit 
mankind, by interesting himself in which the grown man 
nay support the Christian humanity within him. 
The pepypval Biwrixaé are an overwhelming host. It 
seems desirable to supply as many and as potent instru 
ments as possible to him who would combat them. Valu- 
able as the three instruments just mentioned are, it may 
be urged in deduction from the advantage of the "Sunday 
M 































178 Ecce Homo 


and of preaching that they leave him passive; that 
they free him for a time from his persecutors and reviy 
in him the aspiration after a higher life, they do not supply 
him with the activities and the interests of that higher 
life. Societies do this, but for the most part at pr 
in a very insufficient way. They do require from 
members an effort of will, a deed, and one involving 
denial; they require a subscription of money. The money 
goes to furnish that comparatively small proportion of the 
members of the society who are personally grappling wit 
the evil to remove which the society was formed. Bu 
from the majority nothing further is required; all per 
sonal service in the cause of humanity is commuted fe 
a money-payment. So customary has this become the 
the word charity has acquired a new meaning; a man’ 
charity, that is, his love for his fellow - creatures, t 
commonly estimated in pounds, shillings, and pene 
But it is a question whether this commutation, howeveé 
customary, is altogether legal in the Christian Republic 
It would appear that St. Paul recognised a broad dis 
tinction between charity and money - donations. 
seems to have thought that a man might give away 2 
his property and yet have no charity. Perhaps we are 
rather to compare the Christian Republic with thos 
famous states of antiquity which in their best days ré 
quired the personal service of every citizen in the field 
and only accepted a money-equivalent from those whe 
were incapacitated from such service. It is charac 
teristic of the Christian State that it depends for its v 
existence on the public spirit of its citizens. The sta 
of the world are distinguished from each other visibly by 
geographical boundaries and language. But the Chris 
tian Republic scarcely exists apart from the Enthusi 
which animates it; if that dies it vanishes like a fairy 
city, and leaves no trace of its existence but empty 
churches and luxurious sinecurists. And assuredly he 
who remembers his citizenship in it only by the taxes 
pays is but one step removed from forgetting it altogether. 
If then the Christian Humanity is to be maintained 
the point of enthusiasm in a man upon whom the cares 


The Law of Edification 179 


a life have come, he must not content himself with 
paying others to do Christian work. He must contribute 
of his gifts, not merely of his money. He must be a 
soldier in the campaign against evil, and not merely pay 
the war-tax. But then it is too much to expect that 
he should find work for himself. Spenser allegorises ill 
when he represents his Red Cross Knight as pricking 
forth alone in quest of adventures. At least this sort of 
soldiering i is long out of date. In civilised war men are 
marshalled in companies and put under the orders of a 
superior officer. To drop the figure, a flourishing Church 
Tequires a vast and complicated organisation, which 
should afford a place for everyone who is ready to work 
in the service of humanity. The enthusiasm should not 
be suffered to die out in anyone for want of the occu- 
pation best calculated to keep it alive. Those who meet 
within the church walls on Sunday should not meet as 
strangers who find themselves together in the same 
lecture-hall, but as co-operators in a public work the 
object of which all understand and to his own department 
of which each man habitually applies his mind and con- 
triving power. Thus meeting, with the esprit de corps 
strong among them, and with a clear perception of the 
purpose of their union and their meeting, they would not 
desire that the exhortation of the preacher should be, 
what in the nature of things it seldom can be, eloquent. 
Tt might cease then to be either a despairing and over- 
wrought appeal to feelings which grow more callous the 
oftener they are thus excited to no definite purpose, or 
a childish discussion of some deep point in morality or 
divinity better left to philosophers. It might then become 
weighty with business, and impressive as an officer’s ad- 
dress to his troops before a battle. For it would be ad- 
dressed by a soldier to soldiers in the presence of an enemy 
whose character they understood and in the war with 
whom they had given and received telling blows. It 
would be addressed to an ardent and hopeful association 
who had united for the purpose of contending within a 
given district against disease and distress, of diminishing 
by every contrivance of kindly sympathy the rudeness, 





180 Ecce Homo 















coarseness, ignorance, and imprudence of the poor ant 
the heartlessness and hardness of the rich, for the purpo: 
of securing to all that moderate happiness which give 
leisure for virtue, and that moderate occupation whic 
removes the temptations of vice, for the purpose of pro 
viding a large and wise education for the young; lasth 
for the purpose of handing on the tradition of Christ’ 
life, death, and resurrection, maintaining the Enthusiasm 
of Humanity in all the baptised, and preserving, in oppo 
sition to all temptations to superstition or fanaticism, 
filial freedom of their worship of God. 

Thus far have we carried our analysis of the cond 
tions most favourable to the Christian spirit or Spi 
of Humanity. It must remain incomplete. To finish i 
would lead us too far and answer no purpose. Our put 
pose in it is already answered if it has shown how mud 
is involved in the great Law of Edification, how man} 
duties that Law includes, and how large-minded and com 
prehensive in his studies and observations, how free fror 
the fetters of tradition or Scripture, must be the mai 
who would thoroughly fulfil it. 


: CHAPTER XIX 


: THE LAW OF MERCY 
‘But there is another aspect of the Law of Edification. 
Hitherto we have considered it as imposing upon Christians 
the obligation of developing the domestic and patriotic 
virtue which is natural to men into that Christian 
‘Humanity which is its proper completion, and of cherish- 
ing, as much as possible, that natural virtue with a view 
to the development of the Christian Humanity, and of 
cherishing the Christian Humanity itself when developed. 
But it continually happens that all methods fail of accom- 
plishing these results. There is a class of men in every 
community in whom both natural and Christian humanity 
jis at the lowest ebb. These will not only do nothing for 
their kind, but they are capable of committing crimes 
against society and against those nearest to them. Under 
temptation from self-interest they actually commit such 
crimes, and the precedent being once established, they 
for the most part fall gradually into the condition of 
avowed enemies of their kind, and constitute a criminal or 
outcast class, which is not merely destitute of virtue but 
is, as it were, an Evil Church sustaining its evil by its 
union and propagating its anarchic law on every side. 
In exceptional cases men equally devoid of virtue are 
testrained by prudence or timidity or fortunate circum- 
stances from committing grave crimes, and remain in the 
midst of the good undetected or tolerated but not morally 
better than the outcast on whom all turn their backs. 
How does Christianity command us to treat bad men? 
Let us first consider whether Christ taught anything on 
this special point by precept or example, and, secondly, 
let us consider what the Spirit of Humanity itself teaches. 
He made a great difierence between the avowed and 
181 


ree 
4 Li 


182 Ecce Homo 


recognised criminal and the criminal whose vices w 
concealed under a veil of sanctimonious profession. 
latter case, however, is a complicated one, which it will 
convenient to consider apart. How then did he treat the 
recognised criminal? In Palestine the distinction betw 
the virtuous and the vicious class seems to have been mu 
more marked than in other countries of the ancient worl 
and as much as in Christian countries at the present day, 
We read of “the publicans,” the tools of the rapacious 
farmers-general, and of “ the sinners,” among whom are 
included the prostitutes: these two classes of people were 
under the ban of public opinion, and those who laid clai 
to a reputation for sanctity avoided their contact as 
pollution. This social excommunication may of course it 
certain special cases have been unjust, but that it was 
the whole deserved by those who suffered it Christ did nm 
call in question. Now before we enquire how he trea 
these outcasts, let us consider how, from the knowledgt 
of his doctrine and character which we have now acquir 
“we should expect him to treat them. 
In the course of our investigation we have seen Christ 
tightening in an incredible degree all obligations of 
morality. He rejects as utterly insufficient what had been 
considered by the Jews as the highest moral attainment. 
It is in vain, he says, to refrain from injuring your neigh- 
bour, if, notwithstanding, you have the wish and impulse 
injure him; a movement of hatred is, according to him, 
morally equivalent to a murder. And even if you have 
no such immoral impulses, yet if your disposition towards 
your fellow-creatures be purely negative, if you are not 
actuated by an ardent, by an enthusiastic love and bene- 
volence towards all mankind, you are morally good for 
nothing, tasteless salt not good even for the dunghill. 
He thus raises the standard of morality to the highest 
possible point. But further, he insists far more vehe- 
mently than previous moralists had done upon the absolute 
necessity of attaining the standard. He does not say, 
This is morality, but, as it is difficult to be moral, God will 
forgive your shortcomings. On the contrary he says, To 
be moral in this high sense is life and peace, not to be so is 


, The Law of Mercy 183 


death and eternal damnation. In his eyes a man’s moral 
character was everything. He went through life looking 
upon men with the eyes of a King ‘or Judge, confounding 
false estimates of human merit, separating the sheep from 
the goats, disregarding all other distinctions that can exist 
between men as unimportant in comparison with the 
radical distinction between the good and the bad. How 
then would such a moralist act when he found among his 
countrymen this distinction already drawn and firmly 
‘marked in practice? If it was incorrectly drawn, he 
might rectify it; he might also point out that it must 
needs be inadequate as not distinguishing immoral persons 
simply from moral, but only those whose immorality had 
tipened into criminal actions, and whose crimes had been 
detected, from those who could not be proved immoral. 
‘These important reservations he would undoubtedly make, 
but having done so, would he not be likely to stamp the 
distinction with his approval and make it ten times more 
stringent? 

Another train of reflection leads to the same conclusion. 
“One who loves his kind is likely to regard injuries done 
‘to human beings with greater indignation than one who 
‘does not. If the Jews, under the dominion of formularies 
‘and a somewhat outworn legislation, had arrived at so 
‘much energy of moral resentment as to reject from their 

society and personal contact those who had perpetrated 

‘such injuries, was it not to be expected that Christ and 
his followers, in whom humanity was an enthusiasm, 
would regard with tenfold indignation the plunderers of 
‘the poor, and the tempters who waylaid the chastity of 
“men? 

The fact, however, is, that Christ, instead of sanctioning 
the excommunication of the publican and sinner, openly 
associated with them. He chose a publican to be among 
the number of his Apostles, and earned for himself from 
his ill wishers the invidious epithet of the “ Friend of 
publicans and sinners.” Not, indeed, that his intercourse 
with them could possibly be mistaken for a connivance 
at their immoral courses. We may be very sure that 
he carried his own commanding personality into these 


184 Ecce Homo 





















degraded societies, and that the conversations he held it 
them were upon the topics he chose, not the topics ma 
usual or most welcome there. He himself asserts this it 
justifying his novel course—‘ I am not come to call tt 
righteous, but sinners to repentance”; “They that ar 
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ”;— 
words implying that he appeared among the outcasts as 4 
missionary or physician of the soul. If it had been other 
wise his conduct would indeed have been inexplicable 
but even so it needs explanation. The paradox lies it 
his allowing himself to feel compassion for criminals, ar 
in his supposing it possible that their crimes could be 
forgiven. Criminality certainly appeared to Christ mor 
odious and detestable than it appeared to his contem 
poraries. How strange then to find him treating it mor 
leniently! Those, it appears, whose moral sense was 
moderately strong, who hated vice moderately, ye 
punished it so severely that they utterly excluded those 
who were deeply infected with it from their society an¢ 
their sympathy; he who hated it infinitely was, at 
same time, the first to regard it as venial, to relent toward. 
it, to parley and make terms with it. He who thought 
most seriously of the disease held it to be curable, while 
those who thought less seriously of it pronounced 
incurable. Those who loved their race a little made we 
to the knife against its enemies and oppressors; he wh 
loved it so much as to die for it, made overtures of peace 
to them. The half-just judge punished the convicted 
criminal; the thoroughly-just judge offered him forgive- 
ness. Perfect justice here appears to take the ve 
course which would be taken by injustice. 

It is true that the two extremes do in a manner meet. 
Christ, representing the highest humanity, treats crime ir 
a manner which superficially resembles the treatment of 
it by those in whom humanity is at the lowest stage. He 
tolerates it in a certain sense, as it was tolerated before 
the institution of law. But the other toleration was bar- 
barous, Christ’s toleration is the newly revealed virtue of 
Mercy. 

In explaining this we must once more recur to 


The Law of Mercy 185 


Be emnental principle that Christianity is natural fellow- 
feeling, or humanity raised to the point of enthusiasm. 
Now, it will be found that where this fellow-feeling is 
dormant, vice is regarded with simple indifference, where 
it is partially developed, with the anger of justice, but 
where it is developed completely, not with fiercer anger, 
but with Mercy, i.e. pity and disapprobation mixed. 

Let us imagine a person devoid of sympathy, a person 
to whom the welfare of his fellow-creatures is a matter 
of complete indifference. On him a wrong action will 
make no more impression than a right one, so long as 
he is himself affected by neither. He will feel neither the 
indignation of justice, nor the mixed indignation and 
compassion of mercy. Next let us imagine a person of 
limited sympathy. The limitations of sympathy may be 
of two kinds. The person we imagine may sympathise 
only with certain people, as for example his relations, or 
he may sympathise with only moderate ardour. Such a 
person will feel dissatisfaction when wrong is committed 
(this is the instinct of justice) in the latter case always, 
in the former case when the person wronged is of those 
to whom his sympathy extends. But he will not feel 
pity for the criminal mixed with his indignation (which 
is mercy) in the latter case, because his moderate sym- 
pathy will be neutralised by his indignation, in the former 
case, because he will not perceive the criminality. But 
suppose a person whose sympathy is unlimited, that is, one 
who sympathises intensely and with all persons alike: he 
will feel at the same time indignation at a crime, and pity 
for the degradation and immoral condition of the criminal; 
in other words, he will have mercy as well as justice. 

It is to be noted that the word justice is here used in 
the sense of resentment against a criminal, mercy in the 
sense of mixed pity and-resentment. Now it may in some 
cases be a man’s duty to punish, and in other cases to 
pardon, but it is in all cases a man’s duty to be merciful 
to a criminal, that is, to mix pity for him with the resent- 
ment inspired by his deed; and, the words being used in 
this sense, it may be asserted that mercy is not in any 
way inconsistent with justice, but only the riper form of 


186 Ecce Homo 


it; in other words, the form which justice assumes wher 
the instinct which is the source of justice is exception- 
ally powerful. Now, of the ancients, for the most a 
it may be said that they had not enough justice to ha’ 
any mercy. Their feelings with respect to wrong-doing 
were almost always either those of the perfectly un- 
sympathetic man or of the partially sympathetic man, 
They regarded the criminal either with indifference oF 
with unmixed indignation. In Christ’s treatment of 
publicans and sinners we have that ripest humanity, 
fully developed justice, which we call by the name 
mercy, and which combines the utmost sympathy wi 
the injured party and the utmost sympathy for 
offender. ; 
It may be well to pause a moment on the three stages 
in the history of the treatment of crime: the stage 
barbarous insensibility, the stage of law or justice, 
that of mercy or humanity. 
We have in the Iliad an interesting record of the 
stage of insensibility. In that poem the distinction 
tween right and wrong is barely recognised, and 
division of mankind into the good and the bad is not 
recognised at all. It has often been remarked at 





contains no villain. The reason of this is not that 
poet does not represent his characters as doing wickec 
deeds, for, in fact, there is not one among them who is 
not capable of deeds the most atrocious and shame 
But the poet does not regard these deeds with any strong 
disapprobation, and the feeling of moral indignation which 
has been so strong in later poets was in him so feeble 
that he is quite incapable of hating any of his characte: 
for their crimes. He can no more conceive the notion 
of a villain than of an habitually virtuous man. The 
few deeds that he recognises as wrong, or at least as 
strange and dangerous,—killing a suppliant,! or killing 
1 Auwas 8 éxxadéoas Novoat KéXer’, dugl 7 aheipat, 

vooguw aeipacas, ws un IIplauos tot vldv* 

pH 6 wev axvupévy Kpadly xdXov ovK éptcatro, 

maida ldav, ’Axirji 5 dpwGein plrov Frop, 

kal € karaxrelvece, Acds 5 adlrnrac égeruds.—xxiv. 582. 






en ee a ae) 


: The Law of Mercy 187 


i father 1— he, notwithstanding, conceives all persons 
alike as capable of perpetrating under the influence of 
passion or some heaven-sent bewilderment of the under- 
standing. 
But there comes a time, probably coincident with the 
first consolidation of ancestral custom or usage into 
written law, when a sense of justice begins to diffuse itself 
through the community. By the law comes the know- 
ledge of sin. A standard of action is set up, which serves 
to each man both as a rule of life for himself and a rule of 
criticism upon his neighbours. Then comes the division 
of mankind into those who habitually conform to this 
rule and those who violate it, into the good and the bad, 
and feelings soon spring up to sanction the classification, 
feelings of respect for the one class and hatred for the 
other. This new hatred of criminals spreads slowly, and 
is only perhaps keenly felt when the crime is very heinous. 
But it is unmixed. In this second stage a criminal may 
be regarded with indifference as in the first, but if he is 
not so regarded then he is simply hated. It cannot be 
necessary to produce examples of this pitiless hatred from 
classical antiquity; in the Hebrew Psalms, which are 
morally so much in advance of even much later Gentile 
writings, it is sufficiently apparent. “The man that 
privily slandereth his neighbour,” says David, “ him will 
T destroy ;” and he expresses a hope of “ soon destroying 
all that are ungodly in the land.” That he does not re- 
gard this work of vengeance as a painful necessity imposed 
on him by his royal office is plain from other expressions, 
e.g. “ the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the ven- 
geance, he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the 
ungodly.” 

We may be sure, however, that there was one tolerably 
numerous class of exceptions to this unmixed hatred. 
Natural affection, it has already been remarked, was 


always Christian. We may be sure that in the homes of 
1 roy pev ey Bovevea KaTaxTdmev Ofét xadko 

GA Tis GBavdrwv Tadcev xOdov, Ss p’ evi upg 

Sjuou Ojce parw Kal dveldea TON’ avOpuirwv 

ds wh warpoddvos wer’ ’AXaroiow kaNeolunv.—ix. 458. 





























188 Ecce Homo 


antiquity there were disobedient sons, to whom the fathe 
urged by the strong instinct of nature, was sometim 
merciful as well as just. Hebrew antiquity presents 
with some pathetic instances of forgiveness betwee 
brothers, and the prophets are full of the tenderest ex. 
pressions of the mercy of Jehovah towards his disobediet 
children. It is true that here, in accordance with 
conceptions of archaic society, it is to the state rath 
than the individual members of it that pardon is offere 
But doubtless the prophets, who presented so noble a 
image of the Invisible Father, had found in the hearts 
earthly fathers the mercy they attributed to Him, ar 
accordingly, it was by family relations that Christ taugh 
his disciples and they taught themselves to understan 
the law of mercy. “ How often shall my brother offen 
against me and I forgive him, until seven times?” “ 
will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto hin 
Father, I have sinned.” 

While the Gentile nations in their feelings towards vie 
oscillated between the stage of insensibility and the stag 
of hatred, the Jews, who in all such matters were moi 
mature, were for the most part in the stage of hatre 
Among them the division between the virtuous and the 
vicious was most decidedly drawn, and the enmity hb 
tween the two parties most irreconcilable. Let us noy 
consider how such a division must work. In the first place 
it plainly affords a valuable encouragement to virtuous 
dispositions. It separates the wheat from the chaff, i 
throws the good into the society of the good and save 
them from demoralising example and contagion, and, fat 
more than all, through this division there arises that which 
is to virtue what air is to life, a tone or fashion of good- 
ness. But the bad consequences it produces are scarcely 
of less magnitude than the good ones. These bad conse- 
quences are manifold, but the most serious is the effect of 
the system upon the criminal himself. The law which 
condemns sin binds in a most fatal manner the sin to the 
sinner. It exulcerates the sore and makes the disease 
chronic. In the stage of insensibility, men, easily tempted 
into crime, flung off the effects of it as easily. Agamem- 





The Law of Mercy 189 


non, after violating outrageously the rights of property, 
has but to say dacdynv, “My mind was bewildered,” 
and the excuse is sufficient to appease his own conscience, 
and is accepted by the public and even by the injured 
party himself, who feels himself equally liable to such 
temporary mental perplexities. When such a view of sin 

revailed no high virtue was possible, but at the same 
time that moral degradation was equally unknown which 
follows the loss of self-respect. After the introduction of 
law crime could never again be thus lightly expiated and 
forgotten. By solemn trial and public punishment the 
criminal was made conspicuously visible to his fellow- 
citizens, he was held up to their criticism, and it became 
part of their duty and of their education to hate him. 
For them this was beneficial; but how did it operate on 
the criminal himself? When the law was satisfied and 
the punishment inflicted, could he return to his former 
estimation and rank in the community? Notso; beyond 
the legal punishment another was inflicted of endless 
duration and fatal severity. He might be condemned to 
fine or imprisonment or exile, but in all cases he incurred 
another sentence, in all cases he was condemned to a 
place among the bad, to excommunication from the society 
and league of the virtuous. A fatal prejudice rested upon 
him for the future, a clinging suspicion oppressed him; 
crime was expected of him; his virtuous acts required 
explanation; his endeavour after virtue was distrusted by 
the good or passed unobserved by them; he lived among 
the bad, the bad were now the censors of his behaviour, 
to their standard it was most expedient for him to con- 
form. And as a man’s opinions are commonly those of 
the society in which he lives, the criminal accepted in 
most cases the ignominy as just, believed himself to be 
incapable of virtue, to be made for crime, and resolved at 
last to give the reins to his nature. By this process the 
momentary lapse, the human infirmity, from which the 
best have no exemption, under the dreadful hands of 
law was converted into an abiding curse. It was, as it 
were, bound to the sinner and became a millstone drag- 
ging him down to perdition. Justly have great authors 


























Igo Ecce Homo 


described sin, deriving its strength from law, as a burd 
laid upon the back, or, still more graphically, as a dea 
body tied to a living one. 

And when the criminal is the father of children th 
curse descends even upon those who are wholly innocent 
Before they are old enough to distinguish right an¢ 
wrong they are, as it were, received into the Evil Chure 
by infant baptism, their parents or their parents’ friend: 
standing sponsors and promising for them that whid 
when they come to age they take upon themselves but 
too willingly. Cut off from all contact with virtue, in 
structed in vice, which is itself an easy art, and strange r 
to goodness, which is difficult to learn, they enter inte 
perdition by a natural title, and the same law, whic 
favours so much, as it ‘were, the formation of larg 
properties in vice, provides also that they shall pass by 
inheritance. 

The sole reign of Law, then, is a despotism, beneficent 
and necessary at a certain stage of social development, but 
yet terrible, and, if maintained too long, mischievous 
It is a preparatory discipline destined to fit the pupil for 
another teacher, a proper condition for the childhooe 
of society, but not well adapted for its maturity. 
accompishes a great work in elevating men out of the 
savage levity of primitive manners, in delivering ther 
from passions which by indulgence had grown to resemble 
insanity, from the fierceness of appetite and anger. I 
brings out the instinct of sympathy, it develops the 
power man possesses of identifying himself with-his neigh- 
bour, and teaches a whole community to interest itself ir 
redressing the wrong done to one of its members. As has 
been already remarked, it is in its nature tender and not 
cruel, for it protects the weak who before were helpless 
and arms itself to avenge the injured. Though Law in- 
flicts punishment, yet it exists to reduce the whole amount 
of suffering, and though when we personify it we call it 
stern and relentless, yet, compared with lawlessness, it is 
soft-hearted. But there comes a time when mankind 
have learned all the lessons which Law has to teach 2 
begin to leave their instructor behind them. For Law is 


The Law of Mercy Igi 


me esprit borné, and does not perceive the legitimate con- 
sequences of his own principle. Sympathy, the instinct 
by which men identify themselves with their fellow- 
creatures, should not be partial or limited in its activity. 
Law teaches us to put ourselves in the place of those who 
are injured, but does not teach us, nay, he forbids us, to 
put ourselves in the place of those who commit injuries. 
And those who have learnt his lesson best, and in whom 
the power of sympathy is most highly trained, will be 
most discontented with his rule, and as to the lawless he 
was a preacher of pity, to these he will justly appear cruel. 
= persons are ripe for that higher doctrine which 

ist teaches. 
_ Christ, representing all who are possessed by the En- 
thusiasm of Humanity, does not regard crime with less 
anger, is not less anxious for the punishment of it, than 
the legalists. But when it is punished, when the claims 
of the injured party are satisfied, he does not dismiss the 

tter from his thoughts. He considers that the criminal 
also has claims upon him, claims so strong that they are 
ot forfeited by any atrocity of crime. Nay, they are 
Bther strengthened by his criminality, as they would be 
by misery, for the humane man, who finds his own happi- 
aess in his humanity, does sincerely consider the criminal 
to be miserable. This doctrine that vice is essentially 
gitiable was advanced sometimes in antiquity, but plain 
men flouted it from them with irritation as one of those 
childish paradoxes with which philosophers amused and 
abused their leisure, and some of the philosophers them- 
selves showed that they only half believed it by the self- 
somplacency and affected preciseness with which they 
Jemonstrated it. Nevertheless he in whom humanity is 
an enthusiasm does honestly feel distressed when he thinks 
yf those who are fallen and lost in character and whom 
jociety repudiates. Even when wickedness is prosperous 
ind flourishes like a green bay tree, he understands pretty 
well and unaffectedly pities the uneasiness of remorse, 
he loneliness of pride, the moral paralysis that succeeds 
atiety, the essential poverty of vulgarity. Nor does he 
milly feel such pity, but he has the courage to indulge it. 


h 


« 


192 Ecce Homo 


























The legalist, if he is at any time surprised into a similz 
feeling for an unfortunate criminal, suppresses it as dé 
gerous and weak. The anger which he feels, the punis! 
-ment which he executes or approves, is his guarante 
against falling back into insensibility. His disapprobatio 
of wrong-doing, being not very strong, requires to I 
anxiously cherished lest it should die in him altogether 
Any relentings of pity would be dangerous to it; he hs 
not sympathy enough for both the injured party and th 
criminal; at least any that he might give to the latte 
must be taken from the former. Therefore i in communitie 
which are in the legal stage, mercy is always identifi 
with laxity; the stage before them is mistaken for tl 
stage behind them ; and any tenderness towards crimina 
—parum odisse malos cives—is regarded as a portentot 
omen-of the downfall of discipline and of public ruin. Bu 
the moment that sympathy ceases to be this invalid thin 
needing constant artificial stimulants, the moment 
kindles into the free Enthusiasm of Humanity, it gets 
confidence to follow its own impulses. It perceives th 
truth of what has been explained above, that mercy is 1 
relaxation of justice, but justice itself in a riper stage 
it is not afraid that if it pities criminals it shall have 1 
compassion left to bestow on the innocent sufferers fro 
criminality. On the contrary, it is confident that if it ce 
pity those with whom it is angry and at the very mome! 
when it is most angry, and even at the very moment whe 
it is inflicting the punishment suggested by a just anger 
it will be able a fortiori to pity and sympathise with thos 
who are suffering from no fault of their own. 
Therefore it is that Christ went boldly among the pul 
licans and sinners. Virtue, he considered, was not nol 
so feebly supported that its soldiers must needs remat 
for ever within their entrenched camp. This had bee 
necessary at an earlier stage of the war. A close am 
exclusive league of the virtuous had been necessary at a 
earlier time, that they might not forget their principle 
or be overwhelmed by numbers. But goodness had no 
become ten times more powerful in becoming an en hi 
siasm. It no longer contents itself with barely preservin 


: The Law of Mercy 193 


its existence in the presence of prevailing vice. It turns 
against its enemy; it undertakes to take the hostile army 
prisoner. The children of Israel turn and pursue the 
Egyptians through the Red Sea. Under the command 
of Christ Jerusalem lays siege to Babylon. He announces 
a great mundane project of regeneration. He will not 
cent to lose those who have apostatised from virtue. 
He will not rest content with raising goodness to a higher 
standard i in those who are good already, nor with making 
it easier for others to be good in future. He will go in 
search of those who have already fallen; no matter tae 
deep their degradation, he will not willingly lose one. 
Besides the title of King, or Son of Man, he assumes that 
of Saviour or Redeemer, and in this work he seems to 
have his heart even more than in the other. The shep- 
herd, he says, leaves without hesitation the ninety-nine 
Sheep to seek the hundredth that is lost. A woman that 
has lost a single piece of money will sweep the whole 
house and search diligently till she find it. And what 
pleasure when such a search is successful! In heaven, 
among God’s angels, there is more joy over one sinner 
that returns than over ninety and nine that never 
wandered. 





SS es 


CHAPTER XX 


THE LAW OF MERCY—continued 
























Curist then undertakes the conversion of sinners. OQ 
his success in this enterprise our biographies, particularl 
that of St. Luke, contain many examples. Christianity 
by giving men a greater interest in each other than 
had before, and by weakening the influence of artificia 
distinctions, and, at the same time, by its intense serio 
ness, gave those who were influenced by it a keen eye fe 
character and an insight into human nature such as is ver 
rarely found in antiquity. The stories of conversatio 
recorded in the Gospels have a liveliness and truth whie 
everyone can in some measure feel, but which are felt te 
times as strongly by those who know and consider how 
perfectly new to literature such sketches were when the 
appeared. It was by them that the depth and complexit 
and mystery of the human heart were first brought to lighi 
and their appearance involved a revolution in litera 
the results of which are to be traced not so much in 
writers of the long barbaric period which followed thei 
diffusion as in Dante and Shakspeare. Of these stories w 
will find room here for two, the one containing the repen 
ance of a man, the other of a woman. ; 

Zaccheus held a high office under the farmers-genera 
and had become rich. His wealth, however, had ne 
availed to relax the social excommunication under whicl 
with all his fraternity, he lay. Either the Jews of 
time were less dazzled by wealth than the Gentiles of t 
present, or they reflected with indignation that the rich 
he had amassed had been plundered from themselve 
By some means he had heard of Christ, and conceiy 
an intense curiosity to see him. That it was no vulg: 
curiosity, but that overpowering attraction towards grea 


194 


The Law of Mercy 195 


iaecs and goodness—that faith, which is the germ of all 
that is good in human character—may be gathered from 
the sequel of the story. He may have heard it reported 
‘that Christ did not, like other religious men, disdain the 
company of publicans, and that he had condescended to 
be entertained at their houses. He was rich; he also was 
able, if only such an honour could be granted him, to 
entertain Christ. It is for this that riches are enviable, 
that while the poor must be content with glimpses of the 
hero or the saint as he passes in the street, the rich can 
bring him within their doors and contemplate him at 
their leisure. But Zacchzus had not the courage to use 
this privilege of his wealth. His conscience was ill at 
ease, the stigma of his infamous occupation had entered 
into his heart. He was afraid to show his wealth to 
Christ, lest the question should be asked him how it had 
been gained. He submitted therefore to look on among 
the poor, and to be satisfied with what he could see as the 
procession passed. But the crowd was dense, and, it may 
be, found a pleasure in elbowing aside the social tyrant 
who had thus put himself on a level with them. He was 
short, and saw himself in danger of losing even the passing 
glimpse of Christ’s countenance with which he had re- 
solved to be content. Determined to secure at least so 
much, he ran forward and climbed into a tree which 
overshadowed the road by which the train was to pass. 
By this means he saw Christ, and not only so but Christ saw 
him. Zaccheus was not one of the most pitiable of his ex- 
communicated class. He might be hated, but he was suc- 
cessful; he was one of those who might say, “‘ Populus me 
sibilat, at mihi plaudo.”’ In a word, he was a prosperous 
plunderer, living in abundance among the victims of his 
Tapacity. But Christ was touched by the enthusiasm he 
displayed, and may have divined and understood the 
shame which, as we have conjectured, caused him to 
shrink from a personal interview. Such enthusiasm and 
shame seemed to Christ the first stirrings of humanity in 
the publican’s heart, and by a single stroke he completed 
the change he perceived to be beginning, and ripened a 
half-hopeless yearning into a settled purpose of moral 





196 Ecce Homo 























amendment. Without delay, or reserve, or conditions, ) 
rebuke, he gave himself up to the publican. Adopting 
the royal style which was familiar to him, and which com= 
mends the loyalty of a vassal in the most delicate manne 
by freely exacting his services, he informed Zaccheus of 
his intention to visit him, and signified his pleasure tha’ 
a banquet be instantly prepared. Such generous conf 
dence put a new soul into Zaccheus; it snapped in 
moment the spell of wickedness under which all his bette 
instincts had remained in dull abeyance; and while 
crowd murmured at the exceptional honour done to 
public enemy, Zacchzus stood forth, and solemnly de 
voted half his property to the poor, and vowed fourfole 
restoration to all whom he had wronged. 

This is the repentance of a man. Zaccheus show 
no remarkable sensibility; he sheds no tears, he utter: 
no strising reflections. The movement in his mind i 
strong, but not in the least peculiar or difficult to follow 
It is a conflict between common honesty and the instinct 
of the thief, a conflict in which the former, fighting ai 
great odds, gains a signal victory. Against all the might 
of inveterate habit, and bad society, and a crushing pub 
prejudice, this man makes head, and by one great effor 
forces his way back into the class of good citizens and 
honest men. And this great but simple achievement h 
gained power to perform, not through reflection an 
reasoning, not through the eloquence of a preacher, no 
through supernatural terrors, but through the cordial, re 
storing influence of Mercy. It was Mercy, which is nol 
Pity—a thing comparatively weak and vulgar—but Pity 
and Resentment blended at the highest power of each 
the most powerful restorative agent known in the medicine 
of the soul; it was Mercy that revealed itself in Christ’ 
words, the Pity slightly veiled under royal grace, the Re 
sentment altogether unexpressed and yet not conceale 
because already too surely divined and anticipated by the 
roused conscience of the criminal. And. Mercy, more 
powerful than Justice, redeemed the criminal while 1 
judged him, increased his shame tenfold, but increased in 
the same proportion the wish and courage to amend. 


: The Law of Mercy 197 


The second story describes the repentance of a woman. 
It is a fragment. A woman fallen from virtue, we know 
not who, entered a room in the house of a Pharisee who 
‘was entertaining Christ. We know not particularly what 
‘Christ had done for her, but we can conclude generally 
that he had roused her conscience as he did that of Zac- 
‘cheus, that he had restored her to virtue by giving her 
hope and by inspiring her with an enthusiastic devotion 
to himself. She threw herself down before him and em- 
braced his feet, weeping so abundantly over them that 
‘she was obliged to wipe them, which she did with her hair. 
This is the picture presented to us, and we know nothing 
further of the woman, although tradition has identified 
her with that Mary Magdalene of whose touching fidelity 
to Christ in the last scenes of his life so much is recorded. 
But fragmentary as the story is, it is all-important, as 
the turning-point in the history of women. Such wisdom 
is there in humanity that he who first looked upon his 
fellow-creatures with sympathetic eyes found himself, as 
it were, in another world and made mighty discoveries 
at every step. The female sex, in which antiquity saw 
nothing but inferiority, which Plato considered intended 
to do the same things as the male only not so well, was 
understood for the first time by Christ. His treatment 
brought out its characteristics, its superiorities, its pecu- 
liar power of gratitude and self-devotion. That woman 
who dried with her hair the feet she had bathed in grateful 
tears has raised her whole sex to a higher level. But we 
are concerned with her not merely as a woman, but as a 
fallen woman. And it is when we consider her as such 
that the prodigious force and originality of Christ’s mercy 
makes itself felt. For it is probably in the case of this 
particular vice that justice ripens the slowest and the 
seldomest into mercy. Most persons in whom the moral 
sense is very strong are, as we have said, merciful; mercy 
is in general a measure of the higher degrees of keenness 
in the moral sense.. But there is a limit beyond which it 
seems almost impossible for mercy, properly so called, to 
subsist. There are certain vices which seem to indicate 
a criminality so engrained, or at least so inveterate, that 


, 
























198 Ecce Homo 


mercy is, as it were, choked in the deadly atmosphere thz 
surrounds them, and dies for want of that hope upon which 
alone it can live. Vices that are incorrigible are no proper 
objects of mercy, and there are some vices which virtuous 
people are found particularly ready to pronounce incor- 
rigible. Few brave men have any pity to spare for a con- 
firmed coward. And as cowardice seems to him who hz 
the instinct of manliness a fatal vice in man as implying 
an absence of the indispensable condition of masculine 
virtue, so does confirmed unchastity in woman seem @ 
fatal vice to those who reverence womanhood. And 
therefore little mercy for it is felt by those who take a 
serious view of sexual relations. There are multitudes wh 
think lightly of it, and therefore feel a good deal of com=- 
passion for those who suffer at the hands of society suc] 
a terrible punishment for it. There are others who can 
have mercy on it while they contemplate it, as it were, at 
a distance and do not realise how mortal to the very soul 
of womanhood is the habitual desecration of all the 
sacraments of love. Lastly, there are some who force 
themselves to have mercy on it out of reverence for the 
example of Christ. But of those who see it near, and 
whose moral sense is keen enough to judge of it, the 
greater number pronounce it incurable. We know the 
pitiless cruelty with which virtuous women commonly 
regard it. Why is it that in this one case the female sex 
is more hard-hearted than the male? Probably because 
in this one case it feels more strongly, as might be expected, 
the heinousness of the offence; and those men who criti 
cise women for their cruelty to their fallen sisters do no 
really judge from the advanced stage of mercy but from 
the lower stage of insensibility. It is commonly by lo 
itself that men learn the sacredness of love. Yet, though 
Christ never entered the realm of sexual love, this sacred- 
ness seems to have been felt by him far more deeply than 
by other men. We have already had an opportunity of 
observing this in the case of the woman taken in adultery. 
He exhibited on that occasion a profound delicacy of which 
there is no other example in the ancient world, and which 
anticipates and excels all that is noblest in chivalrous and 


The Law of Mercy 199 


‘finest in modern manners. In his treatment of the prosti- 
tute, then, how might we expect him to act? Not, surely, 
with the ready tolerance of men, which is but laxity; we 
‘might expect from him rather the severity of women, 
which is purity. Disgust will overpower him here, if any- 
where. He will say, “ Thy sin’s not accidental, but a 
trade. ... Tis best that thou diest quickly.” There 
‘is no doubt that he was not wanting in severity; the 
gratitude that washed his feet in tears was not inspired 
by mere good-nature. But he found mercy too, where 
“mercy commonly fails even in the tender hearts of women. 
And mercy triumphed, where it commonly dies of mere 
despair. 
_ These two stories may serve as specimens of Christ’s 
‘redeeming power. At the same time they exhibit to us, 
it is plain, the natural working of the Enthusiasm of 
Humanity, the essential spirit of Christianity. The latter 
story in particular has gone to the heart of Christendom. 
It has given origin and even a name to institutions which 
are found wherever the Christian Church is found, and the 
object of which is to redeem women that have fallen from 
‘yirtue. It has given to Christian art the figure of the 
“Magdalen, which, when contrasted with the Venus of 
Greek sculpture, represents in a very palpable manner the 
change which Christ has wrought in the moral feelings of 
mankind with respect to women. May we then lay it 
down as one of the duties of positive morality to attempt 
‘the restoration to virtue of the criminal and outcast 
classes? 

The Christian Church has certainly always reckoned 
this among its duties; nevertheless there exists at the 
present day among practical men a strong repugnance to 
all schemes of the kind, a repugnance founded on observa- - 

tion and experience, and therefore not likely to be wholly 
unreasonable. It will be well worth while to state the 
world’s case against the Christian doctrine of repentance. 

In the first place, the world will admit what has been 
said concerning the imperfection of the legal system. It 
is impossible to deny that the habit of regarding criminals 
with unmixed hatred is a pernicious one. Law taken by 





200 Ecce Homo 


itself benefits the good, and so far is most useful; but a 
the same time it makes the wavering bad and the 
worse, and vice hereditary, and so far it does frigh 
mischief. Mercy therefore must be called in to temper 
justice, and here Christianity is right. In the treatment o 
the criminal we must consider his interest as well as the 
interest of the injured party. We must anxiously study 
the best means of moderating punishment so as to lea 
the criminal a hope of recovering the public esteem, i 
best means of inflicting a disgrace which shall not 
indelible. This is a just principle, and Christ’s prote 
against the pitiless rigour which the Jews exercised on 
the publicans and sinners was right and memorable. a 
we follow the example he set we may save many w 
under the legal system are lost inevitably. We may 
arrest some at the beginning of a bad career whom the 
legal system would hurry forward. But the hope of re- 
covering all, of melting the most hardened, is an error 
enthusiasm. Men who look facts in the face, it is said, 
recognise that vice when it has once fairly laid hold of a 
man is an incurable disease, and, moreover, that it lays 
hold of men with a fatal rapidity. There is such a thing 
as repentance, and this fact should not be forgotten; but, 
on the other hand, it is a mistake to attach very great 
importance to it, for a practical and valuable repentance 
is very rare; the stage in the criminal’s career in which 
it is possible is a short one, and it is only the less heinous 
forms of criminality which admit of it at all. : 
This is probably the view which the most temperate of 
so-called practical men take of repentance when they do 
not allow themselves to be overawed by the authority of 
Christianity. Clearly it is not the view of Christ. He is 
far more hopeful; he believes that the most inveterate 
and enormous criminality may be shaken off, and he is so 
sanguine of the possibility of restoring the lost that he 
avows himself ready to neglect for this enterprise his other 
task of strengthening and developing the virtue of the 
good. Let us endeavour to discover the ground of this 
difference of opinion. 7 
The popular view, then, is that there are two kinds of 


vice. The one includes whatever we understand by in- 
firmities, as faults of temper, or passion. Uncontrolled 
temper or unbridled passions may lead to grave crimes; 
“still we regard these vices as venial, and are at all times 
ready to believe in the repentance and reformation of one 
addicted to them. The other class includes such vices as 
perfidy, brutality, and cowardice; and of these, for the 
“most part, “the world will not believe a man repents,” 
and when it finds the Church undertaking to convert such 
characters and boasting of its success, it, whether openly 
or secretly, accuses Christianity of encouraging hypocrisy. 
Now if we consider this classification of vices, or if we ask 
ourselves how the vicious characters we are disposed to 
forgive differ from those to whom we refuse forgiveness, 
we shall find that the one thing which we consider indis- 
pensable is good impulses. The man who has these may 
commit any of the crimes to which turbulent passions 
May prompt or feebleness of will leave the path open, and 
yet he will not forfeit our sympathy. We shall continue 
to hope for him, and, if he should declare himself repentant 
and reformed, we shall not suspect him of insincerity, for 
we shall regard him as one who all along had the root of 
the matter in him. But the cold-blooded, low-minded 
criminal, whose crimes have cost him no struggle and no 
Temorse, without ardour in his pulses or blush upon his 
cheek—when such a man abandons evil courses we but 
suspect him of some deeper treachery than usual, for we 
See no soil out of which virtue could spring. This is the 
Tough philosophy of common life, and in ordinary cases it 
serves us well enough. “ This wise world of ours is mainly 
Tight.” But the question arises, How do these indispen- 
sable good impulses arise in the mind? If those who have 
them had them from earliest childhood in the same 
Strength, and those who want them have never possessed 
them in any degree, then indeed we must reconcile our- 
selves to the maxim, “ Once a villain, always a villain.” 
But it will be found that the same rule holds of these good 
impulses which holds of all other human endowments, 
namely, that though different men may by nature possess 
them in different degrees, yet all possess them in some 








The Law of Mercy 201 


202 Ecce Homo 





degree; and also that they require development by ex 
ternal influences. Further, it is possible that in the 
absence of such influences they do not die but remain 
within the man undiscovered and dormant. Accordingly, 
though it is quite true that where virtuous impulses are 
not active virtue cannot live, yet it is by no means c ’ 
that where such impulses are not active they do not exis 
and may not, by the application of some influence, 
roused into activity. 

But, answers the world, the better impulses do sooner 
or later die of this torpor. It is true that they do not di e 
at once, and there is a considerable period during which 
repentance is possible. But it never lasts longer than 
youth: this is the flexible and elastic time. Upon the 
young try all your methods of conversion and regenera 
tion; but when youth is over, in middle age, when physical 
growth has ceased, when life has been explored, when habit 
‘has become as powerful as nature, when no new idea is 
welcome and few new ideas are intelligible, when a man’s 
character is understood by his neighbours, and any change 
in his conduct would excite their surprise and disturb 
their calculations, when all things concur to produce uni- 
formity and to prescribe an unchangeable routine both of 
thought and action,—in this stage moral disease is incur= 
able, repentance impossible. | 

Again, there is much truth in this. It is an easy thi 
to bring the tears of repentance to the eyes of a boy; vy 
see the most striking changes pass upon the whole li 
and mode of thinking of young men; but the period of 
experiments, the noviciate, expires, and the vicious habits 
of middle life resist, for the most part, the contagion of 
virtue and of noble examples. The power of the ordinary 
agencies of moral restoration which are at work in the 
world is thus limited. But the world will surely admit 
exceptions. Agencies have at different times beem 
brought to bear which have had a greater power than 
and which have roused good impulses in hearts that 
seemed dead. A Whitefield, a Bernard, a Paul—not te 
say a Christ—have certainly shown that the most con- 
firmed vice is not beyond the reach of regenerating i 






















The Law of Mercy 203 


fluences. Inspired men like these appearing at intervals 
have wrought what may be called moral miracles. Nor 
is it possible to set bounds to the restoring and converting 
power of virtue, when, as it were, it takes fire—when, 
instead of a rule teaching a man to do justice to his neigh- 
bours, and to benefit them when an occasion presents 
itself, it becomes a burning and consuming passion of 
benevolence, an energy of self-devotion, an aggressive 
ardour of love. Well! it is this aggressive, exceptional 
virtue that Christ assumes to be employed, and that the 
world leaves out of calculation. Christ is consistent 
here; we have remarked repeatedly that he demands an 
enthusiasm, and it is consistent therefore that he should 
impose tasks to which only an enthusiasm is equal. 
Once more, however, the world may answer, Christ 
may be consistent in this, but is he wise? It may be true 
that he does demand an enthusiasm, and that such an en- 
_thusiasm may be capable of awakening the moral sense in 
hearts in which it seemed dead. But if, notwithstanding 
this demand, only a very few members of the Christian 
Church are capable of the enthusiasm, what use in im- 
posing on the whole body a task which the vast majority 
are not qualified to perform? Would it not be well to 
“recognise the fact which we cannot alter, and to abstain 
from demanding from frail human nature what human 
nature cannot render? Would it not be well for the 
Church to impose upon its ordinary members only ordin- 
ary duties? When the Bernard or the Whitefield ap- 
pears, let her by all means find occupation for him. Let 
her in such cases boldly invade the enemy’s country. But 
in ordinary times would it not be well for her to confine 
herself to more modest and practicable undertakings? 
There is much for her to do even though she should 
honestly confess herself unable to reclaim the lost. She 
“may train the young, administer reproof to slight lapses, 
‘Maintain a high standard of virtue, soften manners, diffuse 
enlightenment. Would it not be well for her to adapt 
her ends to her means? 
No, it would not be well; it would be fatal to do so; 
and Christ meant what he said, and said what was true, 






















204 Ecce Homo 


when he pronounced the Enthusiasm of Humanity to be 
everything, and the absence of it to be the absence of 
everything. The world understands its own routine well 
enough; what it does not understand is the mode of 
changing that routine. It has no appreciation of the 
nature or measure of the power of enthusiasm, and or 
this matter it learns nothing from experience, but after 
every fresh proof of that power relapses from its brief 
astonishment into its old ignorance, and commits pre- 
cisely the same miscalculation on the next occasion. The 
power of enthusiasm is, indeed, far from being unlimited; 
in some cases it is very small. History is full of instances 
in which it has foamed itself away: in utter impotence 
against physical obstacles. Painful it is to read, and yet 
one reads again and again, of citizens who have united 
in close league against some proud invader; with enthu 
siastic dependence upon the justice of their cause, the 
invincible force of their patriotism, and the protection of 
Providence, when justice has been found weaker than 
power, and enthusiasm than numbers, and Providence 
has coldly taken the side of the stronger battalions. But 
one power enthusiasm has almost without limit—the 
power of propagating itselfi—and it was for this that 
Christ depended on it. He contemplated a Church in 
which the Enthusiasm of Humanity should not be felt by 
two or three only but widely. In whatever heart it 
might be kindled, he calculated that it would pass rapidly 
into other hearts, and that, as it can make its heat felt 
outside the Church, so it would preserve the Church itself 
from lukewarmness. For a lukewarm Church he would 
not condescend to legislate, nor did he regard it as at all 
inevitable that the Church should become lukewarm. He 
laid it as a duty upon the Church to reclaim the lost 
because he did not think it utopian to suppose that the 
Church might be not in its best members only, but through 
its whole body, inspired by that ardour of humanity that 
can charm away the bad passions of the wildest heart, and 
open to the savage and the outlaw lurking in moral wilder- 
nesses an entrancing view of the holy and tranquil order 
that broods over the streets and palaces of the city of God. 


The Law of Mercy 205 


: Nevertheless the stubborn fact remains. Whatever 
‘may be theoretically possible to the Enthusiasm of 
Humanity, it does not at the present day often rise to 
‘this energy. We do not, as a matter of fact, often see 
these wonderful conversions take place; and when they 
do appear to take place, we have had so much experience 
of the hollowness of such appearances that we expect to 
find in the end the change transitory or else hypocritical ; 
or, if it be genuine, that the convert was never a criminal 
of the deepest dye, but perhaps rather unfortunate than 
guilty. Must we not, then, still conclude that Christ has 
in this instance made a miscalculation and that if he has 
‘not overrated the power of Enthusiasm so long as Enthu- 
siasm exists, he has at least overrated the probability of 
‘its continuing long, and underrated the power of the 
agencies which are always at work to damp and quench 
it? Instead of presuming that the Church would gener- 
ally be under the influence of enthusiasm, ought he not 
‘rather to have foreseen that it would generally be luke- 
‘warm and enthusiastic only at rare intervals? The 
answer is, that Christ does not actually seem to have been 
thus sanguine, but he counted the Enthusiasm not merely 
an important but an absolutely essential thing, and there- 
fore left no directions as to what should be done when it 
was absent. He did not disguise from himself the proba- 
bility of great seasons of depression occurring in the 
‘Church, ebbs in the tide of the Enthusiasm of Humanity. 
He spoke of a time when the love of many should wax 
cold; he doubted whether on his return to the earth he 
should find faith in it. And the Apostles in like manner 
became sensible that their inspiration was liable to inter- 
missions. They regard it as possible to grieve the Divinity 
who resided within them, and even to quench his influence. 
But neither they nor Christ even for a moment suppose 
that, if he should take his flight, it is possible to do without 
him, or that the sphere of Christian duty is to be narrowed 
to suit the lukewarmness of Christian feeling. Chris- 
tianity is an enthusiasm or it is nothing; and if there 
sometimes appear in the history of the Church instances 
of a tone which is pure and high without being enthu- 










206 Ecce Homo 


siastic, of a mood of Christian feeling which is calml 
favourable to virtue without being victorious against vice 
it will probably be found that all that is respectable it 
such a mood is but the slowly-subsiding movement of an 
earlier enthusiasm, and all that is produced by the luke 
warmness of the time itself is hypocrisy and corrupt cor 
ventionalism. 

Christianity, then, would sacrifice its divinity if it abar 
doned its missionary character and became a mere educe 
tional institution. Surely this Article of Conversion i 
the true articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesie. When 
power of reclaiming the lost dies out of the Church, i 
ceases to be the Church. It may remain a useful institu: 
tion, though it is most likely to become an immora 
and mischievous one. Where the power remains, there, 
whatever is wanting, it may still be said that “ the taber- 
nacle of God is with men.” 


CHAPTER XXI 
THE LAW OF RESENTMENT 


Tr is not the fault of the divine virtue of Mercy that it is 
So readily counterfeited by the vice of insensibility. The 
difference is indeed vast, but it often does not express 
itself at all in outward deeds. The difference lies in that 
indignation at vice which in the merciful man may often 
be suppressed, while in the merely tolerant man it has no 
existence. Mercy has been defined above as a feeling of 
mixed indignation and pity; properly speaking, Mercy is 
present wherever such a feeling is entertained, whether the 
action dictated by the feeling be punishment or forgiveness. 
There are occasions when the wise man who entertains 
this compound feeling will see fit to indulge the pity and 
Suppress the indignation; there are other occasions when 
he will gratify the indignation and resist the impulses of 
pity. But he is not merciful unless he feels both. Thus 
the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful, and we 
shall be able to assure ourselves that that unbounded 
compassion for sinners which Christ showed was really 
Mercy and not mere tolerance, by enquiring whether on 
other occasions he showed himself capable of anger. 
_ Of the two feelings which go to compose Mercy the 
indignation requires to be satisfied first. The first im- 
pulse roused by the sight of vice should be the impulse 
of opposition and hostility. To convict it, to detect it, to 
contend with it, to put it down, is the first and indispens- 
able thing. It is indeed a fair object of pity even while 
it remains undetected and prosperous, but such pity 
must be passive and must not dare to express itself in 
deeds. It is not mercy but treason against justice to 
relent towards vice so long as it is triumphant and in- 
solent. So long, if we may venture upon the expression, 
207 ¢ 


208 Ecce Homo 


mercy will be even sterner and more unpitying 
justice, as the poet felt when he wrote— 


And oh! if some strange trance 
The eyelids of thy sterner sister press, 
Seize, Mercy, thou, more terrible, the brand, 
And hurl her thunderbolts with fiercer hand. 





















But the moment that indignation begins to be in som 
measure satisfied, pity awakes; and when indignation 
satiated then Pity occupies the whole mind of the merciful 
man. We have seen Christ when his feelings were i 
this latter condition, when he moved among that class ¢ 
criminals upon whom justice had in some measure done i 
work. They were suffering the sentence of social excom 
munication. His indignation towards them was not dea 
but satisfied, and therefore in his demeanour few traces ¢ 
it appear. But there must have been in Palestine anothe 
class of criminals, a class which is found in all countrie: 
whose vices are not detected or pass for virtues, and wht 
accordingly reap all the advantages and suffer none of th 
penalties of crime. In the presence of such a class t 
Mercy, as we have seen, makes her face as a flint, am 
hardens and stiffens into mere Justice. 
We find, then, in Palestine a class of persons toward 
whom Christ’s demeanour was precisely of this kind. I 
was a class not less influential and important than migh 
be produced in England by fusing the bar, the clergy, an 
universities and the literary class into one vast intellectua 
order. It is to be remembered that with the Jews theo 
logy, law, science, and literature were but differen’ 
aspects of one thing, the Divine Revelation which ha 
been made to their fathers and which was contained fo 
them in the Scriptures of the Old Testament supplemented 
in the view of the most influential party, by a Tradition 
of equal antiquity and authority. As there was but on 
sort of learning, there was but one learned profession 
consisting of the expounders of this ancient wisdom. A 
least these constituted the one learned profession whic 
had much influence at this time, and which could be sai 
to deserve the title. The old Aaronic priesthood sti 
existed, but it bore the stamp of a ruder age and wante 


The Law of Resentment 209 


‘the character and acquirements which conferred influence 
in an age of books and study. As in Greece the priest- 
hood passed into insignificance and resigned the task of 
instructing the people, so far as they had ever undertaken 
it, to the philosophers, so in Judea they were eclipsed 
first by the prophets and afterwards, when the faith in 
inspiration began to die out, by the commentators on the 
old Law. The order of Aaron gave place to the order 
which regarded Ezra as its founder; the priest gave place 
to the Scribe or Lawyer. 
_ At the time when the national institutions of Judea 
were threatened by the Greek kings of Syria, there sprang 
up a party composed of those who clung most fondly to 
ancient traditions, the object of which was to preserve the 
nation from losing its peculiarity through the infection of 
Greek manners and opinions. They bore the name of 
Pharisees. As the national party they found it easy to 
become popular, and, in spite of some opposition and per- 
secution from the Asmonean kings, they continued in the 
time of Christ to exercise a commanding influence over the 
people. It is natural to suppose that this party included 
most of that great learned profession just described. A 
Scribe would naturally be a Pharisee, inasmuch as one 
who devoted his life to the study of the Law would natur- 
ally be zealous in defence of it. Accordingly in the New 
Testament, the Scribes, Lawyers, and Pharisees are com- 
monly named together, being in fact partly identical and 
altogether congenial in views and interests. And they 
may be considered as composing practically one party. 
With the main object which this party had in view 
mone can have sympathised more than Christ. None, 
certainly, regarded the ancient revelation with more 
reverence than he; none can have been more unwilling 
to see the national institutions of the Jews supplanted 
and superseded by the customs of the surrounding nations. 
It might therefore have been expected that Christ would 
rather take the lead among the Scribes and lawyers 
than set himself in opposition to them. And, indeed, it 
is likely enough that, as Socrates passed with the world for 
a sophist, so Christ was regarded -by the people in general 
ce) 


210 Ecce Homo 


as a leading Scribe or expounder of the Law. But if 
examine the character of that great party more closel 
we shall find that they not only differed from Christ 
were radically opposed to him, and that they were nm 
only in spirit unchristian but “essentially anti-christian, 
The whole course of this investigation has shown that the 
substance of Christ’s teaching was his doctrine of Enthu- 
siasm, or of a present Spirit dictating the right course of 
action and superseding the necessity of particular rules. 
Now the doctrine of the Scribes, lawyers, and Pharisees 
may be briefly summed up by saying that it consisted in 
the denial of a present Spirit, and in the assertion of the 
paramount necessity of particular rules. They believed 
that the inspiring Power which had dwelt with their 
ancestors and made them virtuous was withdrawn, and 
they compiled out of the works of those ancestors af 
elaborate system of rules which might serve them for g 
ance in his absence. In other words, their doctrine 
Christ’s were precisely contrary to each other. 





















but the legalist believed that in order to do this it wa 
necessary to adopt a defensive attitude, to throw up wa 
of partition, and as much as possible to isolate the Je 
from those dangerous influences which might otherwisé 
have obliterated his nationality. This belief was a con 
fession of the weakness of the Jewish principle, a confes- 
sion that it had ceased to be a match for the influences in 
the midst of which it was placed, and it suggested a numbel 
of hateful and immoral contrivances for perpetuating the 
division between Jew and Gentile. The hatred which the 
Jews incurred from the surrounding nations, the fancy 
current among the Gentiles that Moses had forbidder 
them to show a traveller the way unless he professed the’ 
own belief, or to direct a thirsty man to the fountain 
unless he were circumcised, had its rise in this odious 
theory of isolation. 
Christ, on the contrary, proposed to preserve Judai 
by putting it upon the offensive, by making it universa 
And this plan implied his belief in its invincible, heaven: 
inspired strength. He held that the same Divine Powe 


’ 


The Law of Resentment 211 


which had originally legislated for the Jews was still 
present, completing his legislation and annulling whatever 


in it was outworn by the Enthusiasm of Humanity 


kindled in men’s hearts and issuing decrees as authorita- 
tive as those of Moses. And in this Enthusiasm he con- 
fided as powerful enough to resist whatever was corrupting 
in Gentile influences and to assimilate what was good. 
Therefore, while the legalists provoked the Gentile world 


_ to that final attack upon the Jewish nation which deprived 
it of its temple and its country, Christ initiated that recon- 


ciliation of Jew and Gentile which was seen in the early 


: Church. 


Again, both Christ and the legalist devoted themselves 
to the promotion of moral virtue. They agreed in think- 


ing everything unimportant in comparison with Duty. 
But the legalist believed that the old method by which 
their ancestors had arrived at a knowledge of the require- 


ments of Duty, namely, divine inspiration, was no longer 


available, and that nothing therefore remained but care- 


fully to collect the results at which their ancestors had 


arrived by this method, to adopt these results as rules, 
and to observe them punctiliously. Devoutly believing 


that in the most trifling matter where action was involved 


there was a right course and a wrong one, and at the same 
time entirely deserted by the instinct or inspiration which 


distinguishes the one from the other, they invented the 
most frivolous casuistry that has ever been known. They 
overburdened men’s memories and perplexed their lives 
with an endless multitude of rules, which sometimes were 
simply trivial: e.g. “‘ An egg laid on a festival day may 
be eaten according to the school of Shammai, but the 
school of Hillel says it must not be eaten,” and at other 
times were immoral, as in the case of the Corban which 
Christ selected for censure. 

Precisely in opposition to this school Christ proclaimed 
that the inspiration which had instructed the ancient 
Jews was not only not withdrawn, but was given to his 
own generation in far greater measure than to any pre- 
vious one. John the Baptist, he said, was the greatest 
of the prophets, and the least of his own followers was 





















212 Ecce Homo 


greater than John. The inspiration of the prophets had 
revealed to them some of their duties, but had left them 
unenlightened about others; an inspiration was now 
given which should illuminate the whole province of moral 
obligation. Casuistry therefore, so far from being im 
portant, was less needed than ever, and it was so far from 
being necessary to supplement the written Scriptures by 
a traditional law that those written Scriptures themselves, 
though they retained their sacredness and value, yet 
ceased henceforth to be, in the strict sense, a binding law. 

So direct was Christ’s opposition to the legal party. 
The method of promoting moral virtue which he proposed 
was not regarded by him as merely better than the 
casuistry of his opponents, but as the only method. The 
other method, in his view, could not produce virtue, 
though it might sometimes procure the performance of a 
right deed; it could but destroy in men’s minds the very 
conception of virtue. It could issue in nothing but a 
certain moral pedantry and in pride. Therefore he de- 
nounced without qualification the whole system and the 
teachers of it. Apologetic voices might perhaps have 
been raised, urging that these teachers, if their system was 
worthless and mischievous, nevertheless did, at least in 
some cases, the best they could, that they were serious and ~ 
made others serious, and that at the worst any moral 
teaching was better than none. We do not know how 
Christ would have answered this plea, but we know that 
he suffered no such considerations to mitigate the stern- 
ness of his condemnation. He who could make allowance 
for the publican and the prostitute made no allowance at 
all for the Pharisee. If we examine the charges he makes 
against them we shall see that he accuses them in the 
first place of downright, undisguised vice. He calls them 
plunderers of the poor, and declares that the countless 
rules which they impose upon others they take no trouble 
to observe themselves. We have not the evidence before 
us which might enable us to verify these accusations. A 
that can be said is that those who are constantly endeay: 
ouring to avoid infinitesimal sins, such as that of eating an 
egg laid on a festival day, are particularly apt to fall into 


The Law of Resentment 213 
"sins that are “ gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” In 
this sense it is true that “la petite morale est ’ennemi de 
la grande.” But it is evident that Christ was not better 
_ pleased with their good deeds than with their bad ones. 
Their good deeds had the nature of imposture, that is, 
they did not proceed from the motives from which such 
deeds naturally spring and from which the public suppose 
them to spring. When these men tithed their property for 
the service of religion, did they do so from the ardent 
feelings which had suggested the oblations of David in old 
times? No doubt the people thought so, but in truth they 
paid tithes from a motive which might just as well have 
prompted them to take tithes—respect for a traditional 
tule. When they searched and sifted the Scriptures, 
_fancying, as Christ said, that in them they had eternal 
ife, did they do so because they felt deeply the wisdom of 
the old prophets and legislators? The people, no doubt, 
thought that these diligent students were possessed with 
the spirit of what they read, but the truth was that they 
only pored over the ancient scrolls because they under- 
stood that it was proper to read them. Therefore the 
‘More they read the less they understood, and they paid 
the same reverence to the languid futilities of some pur- 
blind commentator as to the inspirations of Isaiah. When 
they lauded the ancient prophets and built their sepul- 
chres, was it because they were congenial spirits, formed 
in their school and bent upon following in their steps? 
The people thought so, but Christ pronounced with 
memorable point and truth—what is true of many other 
worshippers of antiquity besides the Pharisees—that they 
were the legitimate representatives of those who killed the 
prophets, and that they betrayed this by the very worship 
which they paid to their memory. 

Let us linger on this for a moment. It is trite, that 
an original man is persecuted in his lifetime and idolised 
after his death, but it is a less familiar truth that the 
posthumous idolators are the legitimate successors and 
Tepresentatives of the contemporary persecutors. The 
glory of the original man is this, that he does not take his 
virtues and his views of things at second hand, but draws 


\ 




























214 Ecce Homo 


wisdom fresh from nature and from the inspiration within 
him. To the majority in every age, that is, to the super- 
ficial and the feeble, such originality is alarming, perpl 
ing, fatiguing. They unite to crush the innovator. But 
it may be that by his own energy and by the assistance of 
his followers he proves too strong for them. Gradually, 
about the close of his career, or, it may be, after it, they are 
compelled to withdraw their opposition and to imitate the 
man whom they had denounced. They are compelled to 
do that which is most frightful to them, to abandon their 
routine. And then there occurs to them a thought which 
brings inexpressible relief. Out of the example of he 
original man they can make a new routine. They may 
imitate him in everything except his originality. For on 
routine is as easy to pace as another. What they dread 
is the necessity of originating, the fatigue of being really 
alive. And thus the second half of the original man’ 
destiny is really worse than the first, and his failure i 
written more legibly in the blind veneration of succeeding 
ages than in the blind hostility of his own. He broke the 
chains by which men were bound; he threw open to them 
the doors leading into the boundless freedom of nature 
and truth. But in the next generation he is idolised and 
nature and truth as much forgotten as ever; if he co 
return to earth he would find that the crowbars and files 
with which he made his way out of the prison-house have 
been forged into the bolts and chains of a new prison 
called by his own name. And who are those who idolise 
his memory? Who are found building his sepulchre? 
Precisely the same party which resisted his reform; thosé 
who are born for routine and can accommodate them- 
selves to everything but freedom; those who in clinging 
to the wisdom of the past suppose they love wisdom bu 
in fact love only the past, and love the past only becaus 
they hate the living present; those, in a word, who sé 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in opposition to Christ, and 
appeal to the God of the dead against the God of the 
living. 

Thus it was that the legal party were actors in every 
thing, winning the reverence of the multitude by fe 


Cx" 


The Law of Resentment 205 





pretences, imitating inspired men in everything except 
_ their inspiration, following motives which did not actuate 
them but which they supposed ought to actuate them. 
_ And as must most infallibly happen to men living in such 
_conventionalism, destitute of convictions, the healthy play 
of life artificially suspended, over the whole inert stagna- 
tion of the soul there grew a scurf of feeble corruption; 
petty vices, littlenesses, meannesses, were rife within them. 
They grew conceited, pompous, childish. They liked to 
hear the sound of their titles, to exaggerate the distinc- 
tions of their dress, to reflect upon their superiority to 
other men, to find that superiority acknowledged, to be 
greeted reverentially in public places, to recline on the 
first couch at dinner parties. The virtues to the cultiva- 
_tion of which in themselves and others they had devoted 
‘their lives refused altogether to be cultivated by the 
methods they used, and in the void place of their hearts 
where morality and sanctity, justice and the love of God, 
: should have been, there appeared at last nothing to mark 
the religious man, nothing, we may suppose, except a 
little ill-temper, a faint spite against those who held wrong 
opinions, a feeble self-important pleasure in detecting 
heresy. 
_ Such was the party which Christ denounced with so 
‘much passion. It may strike us that however corrupt 
they may have been they could hardly deserve to be pro- 
nounced worse than publicans and harlots. But Christ 
‘never went so far as this. He did indeed in a parable 
‘contrast the prayer of a Pharisee unfavourably with the 
prayer of a publican, but it was a publican repenting, and 
the moral of the comparison is, “‘ Better commit a great 
‘sin and be ashamed of it, than a smaller one and be proud 
of it.’ And when he said that the very harlots entered 
the Christian Church before the Pharisees, he again meant 
to charge them not with being worse but less corrigible 
than those whose vices were too gross to leave room for 
self-delusion. Still it is plain that he gave way to anger 
far more in addressing Pharisees than in addressing 
publicans and harlots. 
In doing so he only followed the rule laid down above. 


216 Ecce Homo 


It is not to be supposed that, as a lover of men, he fel 
less pity for those whom he denounced when all the world 
admired them than for those whose part he took when 
all the world disowned them. Indeed his most passionate 
invective closes in that singular lamentation over Jeru- 
salem in which the saddest feelings of a sensitive patriot 
are so inimitably blended with the regal sense of persona } 
greatness which he continually and with so much uncon- 
sciousness betrayed. He felt pity as well as anger, but 
he thought the anger had a better right to be expressed. 
The impostors must be first unmasked; they might be 
forgiven afterwards, if they should abandon their conven 
tionalities. The lover of men is angry to see harm done 
to men. Harm was done by the publican and the pros- 
titute, but anger could do no more against these than it 
did already. Men were on their guard against them, 
their power for evil was circumscribed as far as it could 
be, and justice was satisfied by the punishment of infamy 
which had been inflicted upon them. But the lover of 
men, when he contemplated the vast and united phalanx 
of legalists, saw that which carried him out of himself 
with anger and pain. He saw the multitude sitting at 
their feet as learners and addressing them with titles o 
veneration. He saw those whose lot confined them to 
the narrow cares of subsistence, those whose limbs indeed 
were continually exercised in handicrafts and their shrewd 

ness in trades, but whose higher faculties rusted in disuse, 
and those of higher station, upon whom fell larger tasks 
of administration and government but still secular tasks 
overwhelming the mind with details and concealing 
eternal principles from its view,—he saw all this miscel- 
laneous crowd gathering round their revered teachers 
eager for the wisdom and the instruction which might 
save their souls in the all-engulphing vortex of earthly 
life. He saw that in the hands of these teachers was laid 
the life and salvation of the nation, and that from them 
was certain to pass readily into other minds whatever 
enthusiasm of goodness might dwell in their own. H 

looked for this enthusiasm; doubtless he was prepared to 
find it immature and not altogether that Enthusiasm of 






















: The Law of Resentment 219 


Humanity which dwelt in himself. He observed these 
teachers—and he found they were mountebanks. Their 
gestures, their costume, were theatrical; their whole life 
was an acted play; the wisdom that came from their lips 
was repeated with more or less fluency, but it had been 
learned by rote; sometimes it was good, the wisdom of 
Moses or Isaiah, sometimes it was the dotage of a Sham- 
mai; but, wise or foolish, it came with equal emphasis 
from those who, solely occupied with the fretting and the 
strutting they considered proper to the part, declaimed it 
in the dress of teachers to an admiring audience. And 
marking this, he considered that the power of these men 
to do mischief was equal to or greater than their power to 
do good. It would be better that the Jews should have 
no teachers of wisdom at all, than that they should have 
teachers who should give them folly under the name of 
wisdom. Better that in the routine of a laborious life 
they should hear of wisdom as a thing more costly than 
pearls but beyond their reach, than that it should seem 
to be brought within their reach and they should dis- 
cover it to be paste. Acknowledged penury of wisdom 
might leave them rich in humility, reverence, and faith; 
abundance of false wisdom could but make them im- 
postors or cynics. If a divine revelation be the first of 
blessings, then the imposture that counterfeits it must be 
by far the greatest of all evils. And if the unlucky male- 
factor who in mere brutality of ignorance or narrowness 
of nature or of culture has wronged his neighbour excite 
our anger, how much deeper should be our indignation 
when intellect and eloquence are abused to selfish pur- 
poses, when studious leisure and learning and thought 
turn traitors to the cause of human well-being, and the 
wells of a nation’s moral life are poisoned? 

This, then, was the class of persons with whom Christ 
was angry, and these were the reasons of his anger. But 
now let us enquire what was the character of his anger. 
We must remember that this is he who was called a lamb. 
He was distinguished from the other remarkable char- 
acters of antiquity by his gentleness. He introduced 
into human nature those blended and complex feelings 

























218 Ecce Homo 


which distinguish modern characters from ancient. No 
the question may be raised whether this complexity 
character is not purchased at some expense of strength, 
Ancient valour was well-nigh pitiless. Modern soldiers 
mix pity with their valour: have they lost any valour by 
doing so? In like manner, when we are angry with men 
in these days, we are commonly angry with discrimination. 
We make reserves; we give some credit for good inten- 
tions; we make some allowance for temptations; we ar 
sorry to be angry, and do not, like the ancients, enjoy the 
passion as if it were wine. The question then arises, has 
the passion of anger grown at all feebler in us? Are w 
at all emasculated by the complexity: of our emotions? 
To find an answer let us look at the great Exemplar of 
modern characters; let us enquire whether he was feeb. 
in his anger; let us consider the wrath of the Lamb. 
The faults of the legal party were such as it is very diffi- 
cult to reprove, because they were of so refined and impa 
pable a character. These men had not been guilty for th 
most part of open crime; if they had done wrong, the 
had done so probably not without some good intention 
if they had deluded others, they had deluded themselves 
first. Christ recognised the impalpable, insidious char. 
acter of their corrupting influence when he charged his 
followers to beware of the leaven, that is, the infection, of 
the Pharisees. It is difficult to reprove a party like this, 
without either making so many qualifications as to de- 
prive the reproof of most of its force, or, on the other hand. 
committing an apparent injustice. But Christ’s ange 
was not to be restrained by such considerations. O 
invective has been preserved, probably on account of 
the concentrated passion of indignation which breathes 
through it, and perhaps also because, more than anything 
else, it determined the legalists to lay their plot against 
Christ’s life. It makes no qualifications, it says not a 
word about good intentions nor about overwhelming 
temptations. Delivered in the presence of the multitude 
on whose admiration the legalists lived, it denounces a 
succession of woes upon the whole all-powerful order, re 
iterating many times the charge of imposture, and coup 


: 


: The Law of Resentment 219 


ling it with almost every other biting reproach that can be 
imagined. It charges them with childish pedantry, with 
vexatious and grinding oppression, and, what was especi- 
ally severe as addressed to the learned class, with ignor- 
ance and with the hatred of knowledge. To the men who 
supposed that they monopolised the most infallible rules, 
the most exquisite methods of discovering truth, he says, 
“You have taken away the key of knowledge; you enter 
not in yourselves, and those that were entering in you 
hinder.” Finally, he calls them children of hell, serpents, 
a brood of vipers, and asks how it is possible for them to 
escape damnation. 

Here, then, we see Christ in his attitude of hostility. 
His language itself is not wanting in energy, and it derived 
double emphasis from his position. In his political ap- 
pearance he may be compared to the Gracchi. As they 
assailed a close and selfish ruling order by marshalling the 
people against it, and assuming that peculiar position of 
authorised agitators which the Roman constitution offered 
in the tribunate, so did Christ assail the order of legalists. 
The old Jewish constitution recognised the claim of the 
prophet to a certain authority. One who, advancing 
pretensions to the prophetic character, succeeded in pro- 
ducing conviction, so that by a kind of informal but irre- 
sistible plebiscitum he was recognised to be that which he 
professed to be, was thenceforward regarded as a mouth- 
piece of the Invisible King, and held an indefinite but at 
the same time constitutional authority in the land. He 
was not a mere influence, but, as it were, a magistrate, and 
almost, if he pleased, a dictator. This singular institu- 
tion had, it is true, lain dormant for many centuries, not 
that the Jews had ceased to believe in prophets, but that 
no person had succeeded in winning the plebiscitum which 
conferred the prophetic authority. The office was under- 
stood not to be abolished but simply to be in abeyance. - 
It is recorded that Judas Maccabeus when he purified the 
temple reserved some matters until a prophet should 
appear to give directions about them. The reign of the 
prophets had now begun again. John the Baptist had 
received that universal testimony to his divine mission 

























220 Ecce Homo 


which the legalists themselves, with all their contempt 
for the “cursed ” populace, found it impossible to resis’ 
To his authority Christ had succeeded. When, therefore 
he assailed the dominant order, he did so as a magistrate, 
and his act was a political one. His power was less de- 
fined, but it was not less real than that of a Roman tribune 
of the people, and in extent it was greater, because it was 
undefined, and because it was perpetual and persona 
instead of being delegated for the term of a year. Ac 
knowledged as a prophet, and making no concealment ¢ 
the fact that he regarded himself as a king, he must have 
meant his denunciations of the legal party for a morte 
defiance. They were the final brimming over of the 
of indignation. They made all reconciliation between hin 
and them impossible. 
Our biographies tell us that he early foresaw in wha 
the quarrel would end. He saw that he was driving h 
opponents to that point that, with their love of powe 
and position, they must murder him. His life had beet 
tranquil; the times were tranquil. How easy it mig 
have been to lead a useful life, teaching men everywhere 
setting an example of high aims and thoughts, leavening 
gradually the nation with his morality and sanctity! 
How easy it might have been to procure for himself a lon, 
life, which would have been full of blessing to mankind 
and up to the end to see that which was the great wish of 
the Hebrew patriot, “ peace upon Israel!” What pre 
vented this happy prospect from being realised? Surely 
we may think, to avoid bloodshed and shocking crime: 
a Christian would sacrifice much. What prevented 
prospect from being realised? We must answer, Christ 
himself prevented it, simply because he would not restrair 
his anger. He might have remained silent about thi 
Pharisees; he might have avoided meeting with them ot 
talking of them; he might at least have qualified the 
severity of his reproofs. None of these things would h 
do; he gave his anger way, and drove his opponents t 
that which such men call the “ necessity ” of destroying 
him. 
His resentment did not indeed show itself in action 


The Law of Resentment 221 


He did not arm his followers against them; he would not, 
srobably, had he been placed in a condition to do so, have 
Jone to them what Elijah did to the prophets of Baal at 
she brook Kishon. Yet it appears that the anger he felt 
would of itself have carried him as far as this. Setting 
orth in a parable his own relation to the legalists, and 
Jescribing himself, as usual, as a king, he concluded with 
epresenting the king as saying, “ And as for those mine 
nemies which would not that I should reign over them, 
ring them hither and slay them before me.’ 

In this profound resentment he never wavered. It is 
he custom to say that Christ died forgiving his enemies. 
frue, no doubt, it is that he held the forgiveness of pri- 
yate enemies to be among the first of duties; and he did 
orgive the personal insults and barbarities that were 
yractised upon him. But the legalists, whose crime was 
iainst the kingdom of God, the nation, and mankind, 
t does not appear that he ever forgave. The words of 
orgiveness uttered on the Cross refer simply to the Roman 
oldiers, for whom pardon is asked expressly on the ground 
hat they do not understand what they are doing. The 
vords may even contain distinct allusion to that other 
lass of criminals who did know what they were doing, 
ind for whom therefore the same prayer was not offered. 
it least this interpretation suggests itself to one who 
ndeavours to discover from the expressions which he 
lropped what was passing in Christ’s mind during the 
yeriod of his sufferings. For those expressions indicate 
hat he was neither thinking of his murderers with pity 
nd forgiveness nor yet turning his mind to other subjects, 
jut that he was brooding over their conduct with bitter 
ndignation. To the high priest he replied with a menace, 
You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand 
f power.” To the women that followed weeping as 
e was led to execution, he said, ‘‘ Weep not for me, but 
or yourselves and your children. For if they (the 
egalists) do these things in the green tree, what shall be 
lone in the dry?” And to Pilate he said (drawing pre- 
isely the same distinction between the conduct of the 
tomans and that of the Jews which we conjecture to be 


222 Ecce Homo 

























implied in the words, “ Father, forgive them, for the 
know not what they do ’’), ‘‘ You would have no authority 
at all against me, were it not given you from abo 
therefore he who delivers me to you has greater sin 
meaning, apparently, “‘ I should not be amenable to Roma 
authority at all but for that providential appointmen 
which has placed the country for the time in foreign 
the greater is the treason of him, the chief priest, 
hands his countryman over to a foreign magistra 
These passages seem to show that if no forgiveness of his 
real murderers was uttered by Christ, it was not by 
chance, but because he continued to the last to think of 
them with anger. 
It seemed worth while to discuss this subject at som 
length, lest it should be supposed that Christianity 
really the emasculate, sentimental thing it is sometime 
represented to be. Because it has had a considerable 
effect in softening manners, because it has given a ne¥ 
prominence and dignity to the female sex, and because} 
has produced great examples of passive virtues, Chris 
tianity is sometimes represented as averse to strong pa 
sions, as making men excessively unwilling to inflict pain 
as fostering a morbid or at least a feminine tenderness, 
War, for example, and capital punishment, are frequenth 
denounced as unchristian, because they involve cir 
stances of horror; and when the ardent champions of 
some great cause have declared that they would persevert 
although it should be necessary to lay waste a continen 
and exterminate a nation, the resolution is stigmatised a 
shocking and unchristian. Shocking it may be, but ne 
therefore unchristian. The Enthusiasm of Humanity doe 
indeed destroy a great deal of hatred, but it creates a 
much more. Selfish hatred is indeed charmed away, bu 
a not less fiery passion takes its place. Dull serpentine 
malice dies, but a new unselfish anger begins to live 
The bitter feelings which so easily spring up against those 
who thwart us, those who compete with us, those who 
surpass us, are destroyed by the Enthusiasm of Humanity 
but it creates a new bitterness, which’ displays itself ¢ 
occasions where before the mind had reposed in a ben 


The Law of Resentment 223 
volent calm. It creates an intolerant anger against all 
who do wrong to human beings, an impatience of selfish 
enjoyment, a vindictive enmity to tyrants and oppressors, 
a bitterness against sophistry, superstition, self-complacent 
heartless speculation, an irreconcilable hostility to every 
form of imposture, such as the uninspired, inhumane soul 
sould never entertain. And though Christ so understood 
ais own special mission as to refrain from all acts of hostil- 
ty or severity towards human beings, yet in the Christian 
view, which connects acts so closely with instinctive im- 
guises, an act must be right which is dictated by a right 
mpulse, and there will be cases when the Christian will 
jold it his duty to inflict pain. 
_ What is called the Middle Age may be described as the 
yeriod of Christian barbarism; that is, it was the time 
vhen genuine Christian impulses were combined with the 
featest intellectual rudeness. But as impulse is com- 
only strong where intellect is dormant, we may note the 
Bring of Christian feeling more easily in the Middle Age 
han in the Modern Time. Now it is in the Middle Age 
hat we meet with wars of religion, and with capital 
mnishments for speculative error. Intellectually con- 
idered both were frightful mistakes. The Enthusiasm 
f Humanity, enlightened by a complete view of the facts, 
rould not have dictated either. But it was the want of 
nlightenment, not the want of Christian humanity, that 
jade it possible for men to commit these mistakes. Those 
yrian battle-fields where so many Crusaders committed 
their pure souls unto their Captain, Christ ”; the image 
f Christ’s death turned into an ensign of battle; the 
halice of the Last Supper giving its name to an army— 
aese things may shock, more or less, our good sense, but 
ney do not shock, they rather refresh and delight, our 
umanity. These warriors wanted Christ’s wisdom, but 
aey had his spirit, his divine anger, his zeal for the 
anchises of the soul. Our good sense may be shocked 
ill more when we think of the auio da fé. We may well 
<claim upon the folly of those who could dream of curing 
tellectual error by intellectual bondage. Our humanity 
self may be shocked by the greater number of these 


224 Ecce Homo 







deeds of faith. We may say of the perpetrators of Ch 
These are they that kill the prophets; their zeal for tru 
is feigned; they are the slaves of spiritual pride. Bu 
you could be sure that it was not the prophet but the pe 
nicious sophist that burned in the fire, and if by reduci 
his too busy brain to safe and orthodox ashes you cou 
destroy his sophistries and create in other minds a w 


an unwholesome dread of intellectual activity and freed E 
then Christian humanity might look with some satisf 
tion even on an auto da fé. At any rate, the ostensil 
object of such horrors was Christian, and the indignat 
which professedly prompts them is also Christian, and : 
assumption they involve, that agonies of pain and ble 
shed in rivers are less evils than the soul spotted and 

wildered with sin, is most Christian. 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS 


WE have now considered the Christian character in many 
of its aspects. We have seen that the Christian is one 
whose steps are guided by an enthusiasm that never 
leaves him and that does not allow him to doubt what 
he ought to do. We have seen that this enthusiasm is 
that love of man in the ideal of man, which in a low degree 
is natural to all, made powerful and ardent by a clearer 
knowiedge of the ideal in Christ and by a sense of personal 
relation to Christ. We have seen that the operation of 
this enthusiasm is to make morality positive instead of 
negative, a constant endeavour to serve mankind instead 
of an endeavour to avoid injuring them. We have con- 
sidered some of the principal kinds of service to mankind 
which it dictates. Of these the first was philanthropy, 
or an attention to their physical wants and happiness. 
The second was edification, or attention to their moral im- 
provement. And when engaged in this latter duty we 
found the enthusiasm assuming two special aspects in 
relation to two peculiar classes of men. In the presence 
of immorality disguised and prosperous it exhibited itself 
in prophetic indignation, intolerant aggressive zeal, vehe- 
ment reproof. On the other hand, in dealing with im- 
morality punished, repudiated, and outcast, it appeared 
as Mercy. 

The picture of the Christian in his active relations to 
Society is complete. So far as society is the passive object 
of his cares, it is in this way that he will deal withit. But 
cases arise in which the initiative is not in his hands. It 
is important to know not merely how he will treat others, 
but also how he will receive others’ treatment of himself. 
So long as this treatment is good and benevolent, the 

225 P 


? 


226 Ecce Homo f 


Enthusiasm of Humanity will but make natural gratitude 
more lively. But when it is injurious how will the Chris- 
tian deal with it? § 

Now it was on the treatment of injuries that Christ 
delivered the third of those special commands of which 
mention has been made. The famous sentences of the 
Sermon on the Mount which refer to this subject will at 
once occur to the reader, but there is another precept 
which it is important to bear in mind at the same time. 
In the Sermon on the Mount he bids his followers bear 
with absolute passive tolerance the most contumelious 
injuries: “If a man smite thee on the one cheek, turn 
to him the other also,” etc. But the other precept is 
different: “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke 
him, and if he repent forgive him.” Now the difference 
between these two precepts is not slight but substantial. 
The first distinctly forbids resenting an injury, the second 
as distinctly commands it. The expression, “ Turn to him 
the other also,” in the first is evidently selected with care 
to convey an extreme degree of uncomplaining submission. 
It is the direct opposite of the phrase, “ Rebuke him,” 
which occurs in the other precept. And that by “Re- 
buke him,” Christ did not mean a faint expostulation, 
appears from what follows. For he adds: “if your 
brother will not hear you, bring it before the church; and 
if he refuse to hear the church, let him be to you as a 
heathen man or a publican; ” in other words, let him be 
expelled from the Christian society. The two precepts, 
therefore, differ essentially and cannot be obeyed together. 
If you adopt the course prescribed in the one you must 
deviate from that prescribed in the other. 

Nevertheless the two precepts do not necessarily con- 
tradict each other. Christ may mean to distinguish two 
kinds of injuries, the one of which is to be resented and 
the other to be suffered passively. Or he may mean 
to distinguish two classes of men committing injuries. 
Whether either of these two suppositions be true, and, if 
so, which, will be considered further on. In the mean- 
while it is to be noted that in one respect the two precepts 
agree; in other words, that from these two commands 


; 


5 The Law of Forgiveness 227 


_ of Christ a general Christian law in reference to injuries 

_may be gathered. For in both precepts it is implied that 
every injury that can be committed is to be forgiven on 
certain conditions. In the one case we are told that in- 
juries are to excite in our minds no resentment at all, that 
curses are to be requited with blessings, and persecution 
with prayers; in the other case we are indeed commanded 
to resent the injury, but at the same time we are com- 
manded to accept in all cases the repentance of the 
offender. 

Now this law that all injuries whatever are to be 
forgiven on certain conditions divides itself, when we 
consider it, into two. For it is necessary to examine 
separately the maxim that we are to be prepared, as a 
general rule, to forgive injuries, and the maxim that there 
is no injury so deadly but that it comes under this general 
tule. Let us begin, therefore, by examining the maxim 
that injuries as a general rule are to be forgiven on cer- 
tain conditions. 

It has already been remarked as a characteristic of 
Christianity that, while it excites an intense disapproba- 
tion of wrong-doing, it nevertheless regards wrong-doing 
as venial. Criminals that had been regarded under much 
laxer systems with unmixed hatred became under Chris- 
tianity objects of pity. But it does not immediately 
follow that the injured party himself would be required 
to regard his injurer in that light. The relation of the 
injured party to the criminal is peculiar; his feelings are 
different from those of the bystander who has suffered 
nothing by the crime; and the Enthusiasm, though it 
moves the bystander to mercy, may very possibly produce 
a different effect upon him. In order to discover whether 
it does so or not it is necessary to enquire in what respect 
the natural feeling of the injured party himself towards 
the criminal differs from that of the bystander. Now the 
feeling of the bystander or disinterested person towards 
crime was examined in an earlier part of this treatise. It 
was there shown that in uncivilised times the feeling was 
pure indifference, but that as men advanced in moral cul- 
ture they acquired a sympathy with one another. This 





‘228 Ecce Homo 


sympathy produced the effect that whenever a given per- 
son was disturbed by any emotions, the bystander who 
observed him became affected by similar emotions. Such 
sympathetic emotions were always less powerful than the 
original ones, but they were stronger in proportion to the 
strength of the sympathy out of which they grew. The 
resentment which a man feels at crime from which he 
does not personally suffer is of this sympathetic kind. It 
is a reflection from the resentment felt by the injured 
party himself. Now we have seen that this sympathetic 
resentment is modified and made less pitiless by Chris- 
tianity, and the question is, could this happen and yet 
the same effect not be produced by the same agent upon 
the original resentment? Plainly there is one way and 
only one way in which this might be. If Christianity 
mitigates sympathetic resentment by diminishing the 
sympathy which is one of its factors, then the mitigation 
will not extend to that resentment which is independent 
of sympathy. But we know that, so far from this, sym- 
pathy is vastly increased by the Christian enthusiasm. 
It follows that sympathetic resentment would be vastly 
increased at the same time, if Christianity did not also 
operate, and in a still greater degree, to soften the resent- 
ment itself. But if it operates upon the resentment itself, 
it will do so in the injured party who is animated by that 
alone as well as in the bystander, and therefore Chris- 
tianity which enjoins mercy to criminals must at the 
same time enjoin forgiveness of personal injuries. 

But no such indirect argument is required to show that 
Christianity must needs tend to diminish the sense of per- 
sonal injury. We know that it is easier to forgive in- 
juries to those whom we love, whether the love we feel be 
that love which is grounded on admiration, or that which 
arises out of the sense of relationship. Now Christianity 
creates for all mankind a sentiment which, though not 
identical with either of these, yet bears a considerable 
resemblance to them, and can hardly fail to operate in the 
same way. We may be sure also that revenge diminishes 
in proportion as we gain the power of going out of our- 
selves and of conceiving and realising interests and rights 


The Law of Forgiveness 2290 


not our own. Revenge is the monomania of the isolated 
_and unsympathising heart which intensely grasps the 
_ notion of personal right and property but for itself alone, 
and for which there is but one being and one self in the 
universe. It cannot therefore but be diminished by an 
enthusiasm which creates a moral universe for the soul 
_where before there was darkness, which forces it to relax 
its stiff and crabbed tenacity by enlarging its sphere, 
which gives it the softness which comes with warmth, 
which educates it in the wisdom of sympathy and the 
calmness of wisdom. 

But now what is to be the limit of forgiveness? It 
would probably have been allowed by many of the 
ancients that an unforgiving temper was not to be com- 
mended. They would have said, We are not to exact a 
penalty for every nice offence; we are to overlook some 
things; we are to be blind sometimes. But they would 
have said at the same time, We must be careful to keep 
our self-respect, and to be on a level with the world. On 
the whole, they would have said, It is the part of a man 
fully to requite to his friends their benefits and to his 
enemies their injuries. Christ, no doubt, bids men be 
more generous than this, be less meanly solicitous about 
their personal nights; but where does he place the limit? 
what is the injury for which we are to take no apology? 

Christ said, ‘“‘ If thy brother trespass against thee seven 
times a day, and seven times a day turn again to thee, 
saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.” Probably no 
reader of this passage would doubt that it means abso- 
lutely to take away all limitations of forgiveness, and to 
proclaim that there is no injury, however deadly, or how- 
ever frequently repeated, which the Christian is not to 
forgive upon submission made. But to make this doubly 
sure it is recorded that Peter put the question directly to 
him, whether the seventh time was literally to be taken 
as a limit. The enquiry, it is worth while to remark by 
the way, throws a strong light upon the character of the 
followers whom Christ had gathered round him. “ Lord, 
how often shall my brother offend against me and I for- 
give him? Until seven times?” There breathes, in the 


Ls) 






230 Ecce Homo 


first place, through this question a singular earnestness 
The use of the first person seems to show that Peter was 
not considering the problem as part of the theory of 
morals. He does not speak in the tone of Socrates’ di 
ciples. But he seems to be intently considering how 
Christ’s principle of forgiveness can practically be worked. 
He speaks as though he had himself suffered an injury 
and had succeeded more than once in forgiving it, and. 
now came to his Master to know how long the trial was to” 
last. But, on the other hand, the question shows a 
singular want of the power or habit of generalising. It is 
the question of one who has never been accustomed to 
think, but who guides himself by precepts or texts a 
by rote. He thinks it presumption to try to understand 
his Master’s teaching, and accordingly he inevitably mis- 
understands it. What was delivered as a principle he 
instantly degrades into a rule. He has no power of dis- 
tinguishing the form of the precept from the substance 
and therefore being commanded to forgive an offending 
brother even if he should commit seven injuries, he pro-— 
ceeds at once to enquire how he should deal with the 
eighth. No turn of expression could more nicely indicate 
the process by which those high moralities which are the — 
life of the world are converted into the conventionalities — 
which are its bane. It is also worthy of remark that Christ — 
in his reply refuses to abandon the figurative mode of 
expression. He vindicates, as it were, his right to ie 
these forms of language, and insists that his followers t 
shall learn to understand them, but at the same time he — 
alters the figure so far as to remove the particular mis-— 
understanding into which Peter had fallen. He replied, 
““T solemnly declare to you, not until seven times, = 
until seventy times seven.” ; 
Here then is the prohibition of all mortal feuds. Ir- 
reconcilable enmities are henceforth forbidden to human 
beings. Mercy to a submissive foe is to be no longer an 
exceptional and admirable reach of human goodness, but 
a plain duty. There may be again contentions upon the 
earth, wars between state and state, feuds between family 
and family, quarrels between man and man, but the war 


| The Law of Forgiveness 231 
“without treaty and without herald ” is in the modern 
world, what it was not in the ancient, immoral. Human 
beings have henceforth in all cases a right to terms, a 
‘right to quarter. However they may trample upon the 
rights of others, they cannot trample upon their own; 


¢ 
\ 


however they may repudiate all human obligations, they _ 
‘cannot cancel, though they may change and modify, the ~ 


obligations of others to them. 

This is Christ’s most striking innovation in morality. It 
has produced so much impression upon mankind that it is 
commonly regarded as the whole or at least the funda- 
mental part of the Christian moral system. When a 
Christian spirit is spoken of, it may be remarked that a 
forgiving spirit is usually meant. “But there is much 
more in the Christian system than the doctrine of forgive- 
ness, nor does its importance in that system consist in its 
being the fundamental part upon which the other parts 
depend, for it is not this in any sense. Its importance 
lies simply in its being the most distinctive feature in the 
system, and in its characterising Christian morality more 
than any other doctrine of it. The other laws which have 
been considered, the law of philanthropy, the law of edifi- 
cation, the law of mercy and of moral resentment, though 
Christianity gave a new importance to them, cannot be 
called peculiar to Christianity. They were all in some 
degree recognised in heathen moralities, and though the 
originality of Christianity in respect to them is very real, 
yet it does not at once strike the eye and is not easy to 
make clear. But in the law of forgiveness, and still more 


in the law of unlimited forgiveness, a startling shock was « 


given to the prevailing beliefs and notions of mankind. 
And by this law an ineffaceable and palpable division has 
been made between ancient and modern morality. The 
other Christian virtues were in a degree familiar to the 
heathen world; that is to say, they had often been 
witnessed and when witnessed they had always excited 
admiration. As duties they had never been recognised, 
but they had been known as the exceptional charac- 
teristics of men of rare virtue. Now of forgiveness we 
cannot certainly say that it was unknown to the ancients; 


232 Ecce Homo 


under certain conditions, no doubt, it was very comm 
among them. In domestic and family life, in which 
the germs of Christian virtue are to be found, it was 
undoubtedly common. Undoubtedly friends fell out and 
were reconciled in antiquity as amongst ourselves. But 
where the only relation between the two parties was that 
of injurer and injured, and the only claim of the offender 
to forgiveness was that he was a human being, there for- 
giveness seems not only not to have been practised, but 
not to have been enjoined nor approved. People not 
only did not forgive their enemies, but did not wish to do 
so, nor think better of themselves for having done so. 
That man considered himself fortunate who on his death- 
bed could say, in reviewing his past life, that no one had 
done more good to his friends or more mischief to his’ 
enemies. This was the celebrated felicity of Sulla; this" 
is the crown of Xenophon’s panegyric on Cyrus the 
Younger. No one in antiquity was more capable of 
amiable feelings than Cicero. Yet so much could he gloat 
over the misfortunes of an enemy, that in the second year 
after the death of Clodius he dates a letter the s6oth day 
after the Battle of Boville—that is, the fray in which 
Clodius was killed. This is to be noted not merely as an 
indication of the feeling which Cicero could cherish, but 
of the state of public opinion which could permit him, 
without any sense of degradation, to display the feeling to 
a friend. Still more striking is an example which may be 
drawn from the life of Julius Cesar. He is eminent in 
antiquity as one who knew how to forgive. It is much to 
his credit that his execution of Vercingetorix on the occa- 
sion of his fourfold triumph has always been considered 
a blemish upon his career. The execution of the con-— 
quered general was a regular and important part of the 
triumphal ceremony; there could be no reason, except — 
Cesar’s extraordinary clemency, to expect that it would — 
be omitted on this occasion. And yet the expectation © 
was general.1 Why did he disappoint it? There was 
everything.to incline his mind to generosity. Six years _ 
had passed since Vercingetorix had been his enemy, six , 
1 See Dio Cassius, xl. 41. 


. 


The Law of Forgiveness 2943 


years full of success and glory. Vercingetorix had been 
a chivalrous enemy, and his surrender had been made in a 
manner specially calculated to affect the feelings of his 
conqueror. Czsar had pardoned multitudes of those 
who had injured him, of those who hated him mortally; 
why could he not pardon one whose only crime was that 
he had defended the independence of his country against 
him? Czsar had pardoned many whom it might have 
been expedient to destroy; why could he not pardon one 
by whose death he gained nothing, and by whose forgive- 
ness he would have conciliated a nation? The answer 
seems to be that on those days of triumph Cesar gave 
himself up to the enjoyment of his success, that he was 
determined to drain to the dregs the whole intoxicating 
cup, and that even he could not conceive of happiness as 
perfect unless it were flavoured with revenge, or victory 
as complete while his enemy breathed. The one man who 
knew something of the pleasures of generosity was yet 
carried away by the universal opinion about the sweetness 
of vengeance, and could imagine no triumph but such as 
those we see represented in Egyptian bas-reliefs, where 
the victor’s foot is planted on the necks of his captives, or 
that we read of in the life of the pupil of Aristotle, who 
actually dragged the living body of one of the most heroic 
of his enemies at the tail of his chariot. 

The Roman Triumph with its naked ostentation of 
revenge fairly represents the common feeling of the 
ancients. Nevertheless, forgiveness even of an enemy 
was not unknown to them. They could conceive it, and 
they could feel that there was a divine beauty in it, but 
it seemed to them not merely, like the other Christian 
virtues, more than could be expected of ordinary men, 
but almost more than could be expected of human nature 
itself, almost superhuman. A passage near the close of 
the Ajax of Sophocles will illustrate this. As there was 
nothing of the antiquarian spirit about Greek tragedy, as 
it probably never occurred to Sophocles that the ancient 
heroes he depicts belonged to a less civilised age than his 
own, but, on the contrary, as he conceived them to be 
better and nobler than his contemporaries, we may fairly 










234 Ecce Homo 


suppose the feelings described in this passage to be of the 
highest standard of the poet’s own age, the age of Pericles, 
Ulysses, after the death of his enemy Ajax, is described 
as relenting towards him so far as to intercede with 
Agamemnon that his body may be decently buried, and 
not be exposed to the beasts and birds. This may seem 
to be no great stretch of generosity. But the request is 
received by Agamemnon with the utmost bewilderment 
and annoyance. “ What can you mean?” he says, “ do 
you feel pity for a dead enemy?” On the other hand, the 
friends of Ajax are not less astonished, and break out into 
rapturous applause, “ but,” says Teucer, “I hesitate to 
allow you to touch the grave, lest it should be disagreeable 
to the dead man.” | 
The impression of strangeness which these words, Do 
you feel pity for a dead enemy ? produce upon us is a proof 
of the change which Christianity has wrought in manners. 
A modern dramatist might have written the words, if he 
had been delineating an extremely savage character, but 
Sophocles is doing no such thing. He is expressing the 
natural sentiment of an average man. A modern poet, 
endeavouring to do the same thing, hits upon a precisely 
opposite sentiment :— : 
Sirs, pass we on, i 
And let the bodies follow us on biers. ; 


Wolf of the weald and yellow-footed kite, 
Enough is spread for you of meaner prey. 


And that the change of feeling indicated by this difference - 
of language has really taken place is not to be disproved - 
by special instances of atrocious malignity, however 
numerous, which may be quoted from modern history, — 
nor yet by the fact that the duel is a peculiarly modern . 
institution. That there have been and are revengeful 
men proves nothing, but it proves much that such char- - 
acters are now remarked as exceptions and excite always 
dislike, in extreme cases horror and disgust. In anti- 
quity they were, as a rule, not disapproved, but in the 
extreme case they incurred censure of the same gentle 
kind as we pass on those who push any good or natural 
feeling to extravagance. The duel is, no doubt, at first 


! 


7 The Law of Forgiveness "23s 


‘sight a startling phenomenon. It seems bold to assert 
‘that the moderns are more forgiving than the ancients, 
when it is certain that in antiquity the grossest personal 

‘insults were constantly overlooked, and that we find a 
Cicero holding amicable intercourse with men whom he had 
assailed in public with venomous personal abuse, whereas 

fifty years ago a man was held disgraced who did not wash 
out an insult in blood. When we remember this it may 
seem more correct to say that the modern spirit has con- 

-secrated revenge and made it into a duty, than to say that 
it has adopted Christ’s law of forgiveness. 

And, indeed, it is impossible to deny that the duel is 
an example of the failure of Christianity. It is a barbaric 
usage, which may be traced distinctly to a barbaric origin, 
and which is entirely opposed to Christ’s law. Assuredly 
if a Paul or a John could have witnessed two Christians 
facing each other with loaded pistols to avenge a hasty 
word, they would have called for the crack of doom to end 
all. And yet it is a usage which prevailed through all 
Christian countries at a very recent period. Barbarism 
in this instance prevailed signally over Christian influences. 
Further, it is not to be denied that the spirit of revenge 
entered into this usage. Nevertheless if we compare in 
our imaginations the duellist of modern times with the 
Agamemnon of Sophocles insulting the corpse of his dead 
enemy, or with the Ajax of the same play torturing in his 
tent the ram he supposes to be Ulysses, we shall perceive 
a vast difference between the two, and shall remain con- 
vinced, in spite of all adverse appearances, that the spirit 
of revenge, if not expelled from human life, has been at 
least dethroned and fettered by Christ. The revenge 
described by Sophocles is unmixed hatred and spite. It 
delights in mischief as mischief; it is intent upon its prey 
as a vulture upon a carcase; it feasts upon the misery of 
its object as upon delicious food. The feelings of the 
duellist may in exceptional cases have been similar, but in 
ordinary cases they were totally different. And it was 
only because they were assumed to be totally different 
that the usage was approved by society. Into these feel- 
ings revenge scarcely entered at all. Often, instead of 


236 Ecce Homo 


wishing the destruction of his enemy, he rather desi 
him to escape. Even if the enmity was mortal, at | 
he only wished for his destruction, not that he might suff 
as much misery as possible. What he desired principall 
was first to show that he possessed the courage to expo: 
himself to danger, next, to show that he possessed t 
sense of personal dignity which could not put up with 
insult, and that resolution which might save him fro 
the risk of insult in future. And it was for the sense of 
personal honour which it was supposed to keep alive i 
men, and for the value which it gave to courage, that t 
duel was long maintained and defended by society. 
usage, then, was not a consecration of revenge, but of the 
principle of self-respect. Doubtless public opinion a 
proved also of a moderate gratification of revenge, but 
assuredly a remorseless spirit was no more approved or 
admired by those who approved of duels than by oh 
and was only even excused in the case of an extreme an 
intolerable injury. , 
We may therefore maintain that the general principle 
of the forgiveness of injuries, as announced by Christ, 
been accepted by the world, has become part of morality 
and has made a great and perceptible difference in the 
average of human characters. The principle of unlimited 
forgiveness, even on condition of repentance, remains, no 
doubt, to a certain extent a stumblingblock. Few of us 
even profess that there are no injuries which we are not 
prepared to forgive; probably few of us wish to have the 
forgiving spirit in this perfection. It is not merely that 
such unlimited forgiveness is almost impossible to practise; 
men do not merely regard it as an unattainable virtue, but 
they deny it to be a virtue at all. Not under the influence 
of strong passion, but deliberately, they regard it as a 
mark of servility and suspect it of being inseparable from 
creeping vices. Modern literature is full of the evidences 
of this feeling. Shakspeare says,— 






Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear 
Such creatures as men doubt; 


The Law of Forgiveness 237 


and a modeen novelist makes one of his characters say, 
“There are some wrongs that no one ought to forgive, 
and I shall be a villain on the day I shake that man’s 
hand.” It is therefore a plausible opinion that mankind 
have accepted half of the Christian doctrine of forgive- 
ness and rejected the other half, that they have consented 
to forgive, but not all injuries, not until seventy times seven. 
Nevertheless this opinion will not bear examination. It 
will be found that men do approve and admire unlimited 
forgiveness provided it be certainly sincere, and that they 
would themselves think it might to accept repentance of 
the most extreme injury, provided the penitence were 
certainly sincere. But in most practical cases that arise 
both repentance and forgiveness lie under the suspicion 
of being spurious. There is a manifest temptation on the 
part of the offender to feign repentance; it is his natural 
expedient for averting punishment. Repentance there- 
fore is very extensively counterfeited, and there has arisen 
a prejudice against the name which is easily confounded 
with a prejudice against the thing. The thing repentance 
all would agree is good, but then it is rare; for the name 
repentance people generally have slight respect because it 
seldom represents the thing. And the suspicion attach- 
ing to professions of repentance increases with the heinous- 
ness of the injury. It is a common belief that a person 
capable of committing atrocious wrong must be incapable 
of repenting of it, and such a person’s professions are 
accordingly contemptuously disregarded. When there- 
fore people deliberately consider it mean to forgive 
extreme injuries they are really setting a limit not to the 
duty of forgiveness but to the possibility of genuine re- 
pentance. The words, “I shall be a villain on the day 
that I shake that man’s hand,” do not mean that the 
wrong done has been too great to be forgiven with honour, 
but that it implies a criminality inconsistent with peni- 
tence. The words, “ There are some injuries that no one 
ought to forgive,” mean really, There are some injuries of 
which it is impossible to repent. In the same way, the 
contempt with which we often regard those who forgive 
injuries does not really imply any dislike of the principle 


238 Ecce Homo 


of forgiveness itself, but only a suspicion that in the par 
ticular case the forgiveness was not genuine. For fo 
giveness is a thing not less liable to be counterfeited thar 
repentance. When we were considering the virtue ¢ 
Mercy we remarked that the acts which it dictates ar 
often precisely those which would be suggested by mer 
laxity or indifference to wrong. Just so forgiveness a 
in the same way as mere servility. The bystander there 
fore may easily have a difficulty in distinguishing them, 
and, as forgiveness, like all high virtues, is rare, and ser 
vility, like all low vices, common, the chances are in any 
given case that the act which might have been dictated b y 
either was actually dictated by the latter. When the 
wrong forgiven is exceptionally heinous this probability 
becomes still greater, and so men form a habit of regard- 
ing the forgiveness of extreme injuries as a contemptible 
thing except in those cases where their previous know 
ledge of the person who forgives makes it impossible to 
suspect him of servility. In such cases they betray their 
genuine approbation of the principle of unlimited forgive- 
ness by enthusiastic admiration. 

A few cases of forgiveness will yet remain which we can 
scarcely help regarding with repugnance even though we 
have no antecedent reason to suspect servility. Othello 
is certainly not wanting in manly spirit, yet we should 
despise and almost detest him if he forgave Tago. But 
this, again, does not prove that forgiveness itself is in any 
circumstances shocking to us. What it proves is that 
circumstances may be imagined of injury so extreme an¢ 
malignant that the difficulty of forgiveness becomes in 
calculable, and that any other way of accounting for the 
injured man’s abstinence from revenge, however improb 
able and almost impossible in itself, becomes easier 
conceive than that he could be capable of sincere forgive- 
ness. But every virtue, and not forgiveness only, be 
comes in certain cases impossible to human infirmity, 
Every virtue in the extreme limit becomes confounded 
with some vice, and the only peculiarity in the case of 
this virtue is that the vice which counterfeits it is pecu: 
larly contemptible. 





















| 
The Law of Forgiveness 239 


To sum up: the forgiveness of injuries, which was re- 


garded in the ancient world as a virtue indeed but an 
almost impossible one, appears to the moderns in ordinary 
cases a plain duty ; and whereas the ancients regarded with 
admiration the man who practised it, the moderns regard 
‘with dislike the man who does not. Where the injury 
forgiven is extreme the moderns regard the man who for- 
gives as the ancients regarded the man who forgave an 
ordinary injury, that is, with extreme admiration, pro- 
vided they are convinced of the genuineness of the forgive- 
ness. On the whole, therefore, it appears that a new 
virtue has been introduced into human life. Not only 
has it been inculcated, but it has passed so completely 
into the number of recognised and indispensable virtues, 
that every one in some degree practises it, and that by not 
practising it men incur odium and loss of character. To 
the other great changes wrought in men’s minds by Christ 
this is now to be added, the most signal and beneficent, if 
not the greatest, of all. It is here especially that Chris- 
tianity coincides with civilisation. Revenge is the badge 
of barbarism; civil society imposes conditions and limita- 
tions upon it, demands that not more than an eye shall be 
exacted for an eye, not more than a tooth for a tooth, then 
takes revenge out of the hand of the injured party and 
gives it to authorised public avengers, called kings or 
judges. A gentler spirit springs up, and the perpetual 
bandying of insult and wrong, the web?* of murderous 
feuds at which the barbarian sits all his life weaving and 
which he bequeaths to his children, gives place to more 
tranquil pursuits. Revenge begins to be only one out of 
many occupations of life, not its main business. In this 
stage it becomes for the first time conceivable that there 
may be a certain dignity and beauty in refraining from 
revenge. So far could ordinary influences advance men. 
They were carried forward another long stage by a sudden 
divine impulse followed by a powerful word. Not the 
Enthusiasm of Humanity alone, not the great sentences 
1... . 006’ july avdoceuer, olow dpa Leds 
éx vedrnros €dwke Kal els yijpas ToNuTEvew 
dpyahéous oemous. 


240 Ecce Homo 


of the Sermon on the Mount alone, but both together, 
creative meeting of the Spirit and the Word, brought 
life the new virtue of forgiveness. To paraphrase 
ancient Hebrew language, the Spirit of Christ b 
upon the face of the waters, and Christ said, Let there 
forgiveness and there was forgiveness. 





CHAPTER XXIII 
_ THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS—continued 


But up to this point in considering Christ’s principle of 
forgiveness we have disregarded entirely the words in 
which he proclaims it. That we should be prepared to 
forgive all injuries upon condition of repentance is involved 
in those words, but they contain much more. It has been 
remarked that the two texts which refer to the subject of 
injuries coincide to this extent, but that from this point 
they differ irreconcilably. Having considered that in which 
they agree, it is time for us to discuss that in which they 
differ. 

The one text commands the Christian, if a brother tres- 
pass against him, to rebuke the offender. The other gives 
a directly contrary precept, “‘ If a man smite thee on the 
one cheek, turn to him the other also.” This apparent 
contradiction will be removed if it can be shown that 
Christ was not contemplating the same class of injurers 
in the two cases. Now if we examine the first passage we 
immediately discover that the injurer referred to is a 
Christian. In the first place, he is called a brother, which 
we know to have been the term adopted by the first Chris- 
tians in speaking of each other. In the second place, the 
text goes on to direct that if the offender do not listen to 
the rebuke, the matter be brought before the Church, and 
that if he continue contumacious he be treated for the 
future as a heathen, in which it is of course implied that at 
the beginning he had been a Christian. So much then being 
certain, it is natural to conclude that the other text which 
gives us different direction refers to injuries received from 
heathens. Let us examine whether this conjecture is con- 
firmed by the expressions used in the passage itself. 

That passage (Matt. v. 38-48) divides itself into two 

241 Q 


242 Ecce Homo 


































parts—one which tells us what feelings we ought to enter- 
tain towards those who injure us, the other which tells us 
what we ought todo to them. Now in the first part + there 
is nothing which, after what has been said above, requires 
any explanation. It forbids us to hate the injurer. It 
directs us to continue well-disposed to him and to follow 
the example of Almighty God, who does not at once in- 
terdict the sinner agua et igni and leave him to perish, but 
continues to him and to the land he tills the blessings of 
sunlight and rain. As a matter of course, Christianity 
must speak in this strain. The Christian is a man not 
indifferent to his fellow-men, but regarding them as such 
with an enthusiastic kindliness. If he were indifferent 
them originally, his feelings towards each individual wo 
be determined entirely by the behaviour of the individual 
to him. He would love those who benefited him and hate 
those who did him hurt. But as he starts from love, it 

not to be supposed that injury would excite hatred in 


spires by declaring that it must not have even this effect. 
But because we are not to hate an enemy, it does not 
immediately follow that we are not to take vengeance 
upon him. The infliction of pain and damage is quite 
consistent with love, as we all acknowledge in the instance 
of a parent punishing a child. In fact, if Christ had said 
no more than this we should rather have gathered that he 
approved of the requital of injuries. For he bids us imi- 
tate Almighty God, who though He does not withdraw 
from sinners the rain and sunlight, yet most assuredly, as 
Christ held, punishes them. If we are to imitate Him it 
our treatment of injuries, then we ought to remember not 
only that His tender mercies are over all His works, but 
also that “ God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the 
Lord revengeth and is furious.” 
So far, then, this passage is in no way inconsistent with 
that other in which we are directed to rebuke one whe 
wrongs us, nor is there anything in it which strongly sug: 
gests that Christ was thinking of one particular class 0 
1 Which, however, stands second in St. Matthew (v. 43-48). 


The Law of Forgiveness 243 


offenders more than another. The rule that we are to 
love those who injure us is no doubt absolutely universal, 
whatever course of action we adopt in reference to the in- 
jury. But when the same passage tells us how we are to 
act—when it directs us to endure the most outrageous in- 
sults without a murmur of complaint or expostulation, to 
offer the left cheek to him who smites us on the right, to 
offer the cloak to him who takes away the coat—is this 
tule equally universal, or is there anything to indicate that 0 
the oppressor is to be understood to be a heathen? 

It may seem impossible to limit one part of the passage 
without at the same time limiting the other. But if 
Christ’s thoughts were intent upon the question in what 
way his followers were to conduct themselves towards the 
heathen world in the midst of which they lived, so that 
the other question, how they were to conduct themselves 
towards each other, did not at the time occur to his mind, 
nothing is more natural than that he should in the same 
breath have delivered rules applicable only to the case 
in hand and other rules equally applicable to it, but ap- 
plicable to other cases as well. Now if we read the first 


chapter of the Sermon on the Mount connectedly, we shall 


see that he actually was occupied with this question, and 
that, though heathen are not expressly mentioned, the 
Christian is always supposed to be dealing with them. 
Christ, in short, has given here a manual of the behaviour 
he requires from his followers towards those who are not 
his followers. For example, they are to consider them- 
selves happy when men (i.e. heathen men) revile and per- 
secute them. They are to consider themselves as lights 
in the world, that is, as illuminating the darkness of 
heathenism ; they are to be the salt of the earth, that is, 
their Christian enthusiasm is to give a tone to the languid 
and lifeless heathen society. And in the passage itself 
with which we are dealing, it is sufficiently apparent that 
the injuries supposed are not those to which in the inter- 
course of life every one alike is liable; the blow on the 
cheek, the spiteful treatment, the persecution, point to 
the insults and cruelties which a hated and despised sect 
had to expect from the outer world. 


¢) 
Y 




















244 Ecce Homo 


Add to this the word enemy. It may not strike 1 
© at first in reading the passage that this cannot possib ly 
apply to a fellow-Christian. That there are enmities an 
hatreds between Christians is to us a familiar fact; w 
find nothing very strange in the thought of one Christian 
striking another on the cheek. But we must be careful 
not to antedate this sad knowledge. It is inconceivabk 
that in the very act of founding a society of brothers 
sworn to mutual love, in the very freshness of Christian 
feeling, Christ should have supposed the existence ¢ 
savage enmities in the very bosom of the Church, an 
should have commanded them to be tolerated. Such 
gloomy foresight is not characteristic of the Sermon o 
the Mount. On the contrary, there breathes through it 
more of that ardour which realises a distant ideal, a 
overlooks intermediate difficulties, than appears in any 
other discourse of Christ. It is the first, the simplest, 
the largest utterance of the new Law, the most inspired 
expression of the civilisation of the modern world, the 
fundamental document of ripe morality. It inaugurated 
a golden age of reconciliation and union. It is the earliest 
and softest note of that heavenly Dove which has built 
its nest among men, and which, though often scared away 
for a time, has still returned. True indeed it is, that the 
actual reconciliation of mankind was further off than 
might at that time have seemed. True that Christ on 
other occasions recognised this with a strange sagacity 
and certainty. Still, nothing is so incredible as that he 
should have countenanced or tolerated in thought so 
complete an obliteration of the distinction between the 
Church and the surrounding world as might make it 
possible to apply to the same person the terms “ enemy 
and “ fellow-Christian.” 

If, then, we take it for proved that the directions com 
tained in this passage refer only to the case of injuries 
inflicted by heathens, we arrive at this remarkable con- 
clusion, that Christ held such injuries to stand on a materi- 
ally different footing from those committed by Christians, 
We have seen that in all cases whatever he command 

© his followers to be ready to forgive on condition of 


eG 


| The Law of Forgiveness 24.5 


pentance. But he commands them, when dealing with a 
brother Christian, firmly to exact that repentance, not to 
pass the injury by, not even to rest content with a rebuke, 
unless the rebuke accomplish its purpose, but to bring 
the matter before the Church and prosecute it until the 
offender make submission. On the other hand, when they 
are dealing with a heathen, they are to bear themselves 
quite differently. They are to compose themselves to 
an absolute passive tolerance, and to bear in silence 
whatever may be inflicted. And this is no mere political 
contrivance for carrying a helpless sect through times of 
ae Christians are not to tolerate injuries simply 

ecause, in the presence of superior force, nothing would 
be gained by resenting them. Their tolerance 1s not to 
be reluctant or sullen, nor is it to be a stoical indifference. 
They are to think of ‘their oppressors with positive good- 
will; they are to requite curses not with silence, much 
less with silent contempt, but with blessings, and malice 
not with indifference but with acts of kindness. 

Now what is the ground of this distinction? What so 
great difference is there between the Christian and the 
heathen that they should be treated so differently? 
Several times in this treatise we have had occasion to mark 
the essential difference between a Christian and a heathen. 
We have found it to depend upon that universal relation 
of every man to every other man beyond the special rela- 
tion of kindred which Christians recognise and heathens 
donot. It ison this universal relation of human beings to 
each other that the Church is founded. And it must be 
understood that they conceived this relation to be ante- 
cedent to the foundation of the Church and altogether in- 
dependent of it. Christians did not regard each other as 
brothers because they were alike members of the Church, 
but they became members of the Church because they re- 
garded each other as brothers. Therefore they cherished 
the same feeling towards those who were not members of 
the Church and who did not reciprocate the feeling. On 
the other hand, the heathen, as such, recognised only 
special obligations towards particular classes of men, his 
relations or fellow-citizens. If he recognised any wider 


246 Ecce Homo 




















obligations, they were formal obligations created by pe 
tive legal enactment and resting, in his view, on no esse 
tial justice. In the heathen theory the relation of men 
towards each other, where no tie of nature or of treaty 
had bound them together, was that of enemies. 
were rival claimants of the earth’s wealth; their intere 
were supposed to be conflicting; and therefore 
natural condition was hostility. 

This being so, an injury committed by a heathen mu 
have been essentially different from an injury committe 
by a Christian. Both alike were violations of obligation 
but the latter was a conscious, the former an unconsciou 
violation. They differed as much as homicide commi 
in war upon an enemy differs from homicide committe 
in peace upon a fellow-citizen. The heathen injured on 
whom he conceived to be his enemy by a law of natum 
and to be prepared at any moment to perpetrate a simile 
injury upon himself. But an injury committed by 
Christian was like one of those breaches of the right o 
hospitality or of the right of a suppliant from which eve 
barbarians shrank; it was the violation of a solemn com 
pact. It was reasonable, therefore, that the two classes ¢ 
injuries should be dealt with in a very different way. 
injurious Christian was a proper subject of resentment 
But it was unreasonable to be angry with the injuriou 
heathen. Anger, where it is healthy and justifiable, is the 
feeling excited in us by wrong, by laws broken, covenant 
disregarded. The heathen as such broke no law and dis 
regarded no covenant, for he knew of none. He might bi 
noxious and mischievous, but he could not, in the stric 
sense of the word, be injurious. It might be most neces 
sary to inform him of the obligation he neglected, but i 
was impossible to be angry with him for neglecting it. 

This description of the heathen would be justly charge 
with exaggeration if it professed to describe the ordina 
or average heathen. But what it professes to describe 
the ideal heathen, or the heathen as he would have bee: 
had he lived consistently with his theory. Doubtles 
this is as much an abstraction as a mathematical point 
line. No person perfectly heathen probably ever existe 


The Law of Forgiveness 24.7 


The individual heathen excelled his own moral system 
‘as much as the individual Christian falls short of his. 
Natural kindness was in every one a kind of substitute 
for Christianity. Still it is not easy to overestimate the 
hardening effect of an antisocial theory of life which, 
besides seconding all selfish instincts, did not appear to 
‘those who held it a theory but a truth too obvious, too 
universally held, consecrated too much by usage, to 
‘admit of being questioned. We may imagine the almost 
irresistible force of this universal prejudice upon minds 
which had never heard it called in question, if we remark 
‘the difficulty which most men feel at the present day in 
viewing otherwise than as the wildest of paradoxes the 
proposition that the happiness of the brute creation 
deserves a moment’s consideration when compared with 
the convenience or profit of human beings. If a similar 
insensibility to human sufferings compared with personal 
convenience reigned with equal dominion in the minds of 
the ancients, if their virtues extended no farther than the 
family and the state, if they “ loved their brethren only,” 
it was quite reasonable that the Christians should take 
account of the fact in their dealings with them, and 
instead of rebuking them for a hardness which violated 
no principle which they acknowledged, should endeavour 
to teach them better by forbearance and by unexpected 
retaliations of kindness. 

It will be worth while here to raise the question, If 
injuries committed by heathens were thus sharply dis- 
tinguished from injuries committed by Christians, how 
would it be proper for a Christian to deal with an injury 
received from a Jew? Judaism stands midway between 
heathenism and Christianity. It rose out of heathenism 
as twilight out of night, and melted into Christianity as 
twilight into morning. In its earlier period it had many 
peculiarities in common with heathenism, but its later 
form closely resembled Christianity. It did not, indeed, 
clearly announce the great Christian law of humanity, 
and it had points which led those who embraced it in a 
perverse spirit into an inhumanity almost worse, though 
less brutal, than the inhumanity of heathenism. But it 
contained the germs of the Christian humanity in its 


248 Ecce Homo 


doctrine of the unity of God and of the creation of mar 
in God’s image. It would therefore have been unreason- 
able for a Christian to treat a Jew as one utterly untaught 
in humanity. The Jew was the possessor of a certain 
crude Christianity, and even if he had not been, yet an 
injury done by him to a Christian would generally be the 
trespass of a brother and not the attack of an enemy, since x 
though the Jews were not Christians, the earliest Chris- 
tians, at any rate, were for the most part Jews. 

Christians could claim at the hands of Jews the rights 
of countrymen and the rights of fellow-citizenship in 
the ancient theocracy. Abraham and Moses belonged to 
both, the Psalms of David and the prophecies of Isaiah 
An injury done by a Jew was therefore a thing to be 
resented by a Christian, and not a thing to be passively 
tolerated. This being understood, it is instructive te 
observe how exactly Christ, when he became the obje 
of insult and injury, observed his own law. In his 
murder both Jews and Romans were concerned. It has 

_been pointed out in a former chapter, in how different a 
‘spirit he bore the cruelties of his accusers and those o i 
his executioners. Towards the Jews he cherishes through- 
out a bitter feeling of resentment, which breaks out be- 
fore the high-priest into threatening words. But before 
Pilate he bears himself gently; he exhibits no sign of 
anger, and declares his Roman judge to be comparatively — 
guiltless of his unjust condemnation. He prays that his. 
Roman executioners may be forgiven, although they did 
not merely obey orders but heaped wanton insults upon 
him; and his reason is, “ they know not what they do.” 
This litter of Roman wolves, to whom and to whose 
ancestors no prophet had ever preached, whose only 
morality in dealing with foreigners was to subdue and 
crush them, what wonder if they revelled in brutal insult 
of a Jew who had called himself a king? The burning 
anger he had felt before Caiaphas subsided at once in the 
presence of Roman brutality. He rebuked the brother 
that trespassed against him, but when the enemy smote _ 
him on the one cheek he turned to him the other. 

Another point now requires notice. By Christ’s law 

the Christian is commanded in some cases of injury to go _ 






The Law of Forgiveness 249 


without redress altogether, in others to apply for it to the 
Christian assembly. But the Christian assembly had no 
_ power of compulsion, and therefore if the offender proved 
contumacious, redress was denied to the injured man in 
this case also. It appears, then, that in no case whatever 
does Christ countenance any appeal to the secular courts. 
Are we then to suppose that all that machinery for check- 
ing and punishing crime, which has been established in 
_ every human society alike, is rejected and repudiated by 
Christ? Since he forbade his followers to avail themselves 
of this machinery, are we to suppose that he disapproved 
of it, and that he intended, when society should be re- 
modelled in accordance with his morality, that it should 
be abolished, and that men should depend in future for 
their protection against violence upon the power of for- 
giveness to charm away the lawlessness of the robler and 
the plunderer? 

It is certainly evident that if Christ’s law were univer- 
sally practised in a Christian land the administration of 
justice would be suspended. Where all alike contented 
themselves with first rebuking and in case of contumacy 
renouncing the society of those who injured them, there 
would be no trials, for there would be no prosecutions. 
Government would be obliged to abdicate its function of 
maintaining tranquillity and good order in the kingdom. 
Is this, then, what Christ intended, and did he believe that 
the influence of the Enthusiasm of Humanity would be 
_ such as to render law and police superiiuous? Of Christ’s 
views on civil government we know very little. Still it is 
not conceivable that he should have rejected altogether 
the notion of punishment, since we see that in describ- 
ing the Divine government he introduces it freely. In 
various parables he has represented himself as a ruler, 
and his conception of the functions of a ruler appears 
not to differ from that commonly received. It most 
distinctly includes criminal jurisdiction and punishment. 
We may be sure that one who habitually considered 
governors as charged with the duty of inflicting punish- 
ment, cannot have considered it the duty of subjects to 
prevent punishment from being inflicted. 

It is in the circumstances of the Church at its founda- 


250 Ecce Homo 


tion that we shall find the explanation of the difficulty 
Christ forbids his followers to appeal to the secular courts 
not because he disapproved of criminal law in the abs 

but for the same reason for which he systematically 

over everything relating to politics and government. I 
was because the Church was established in the midst of a 
heathen society which it was in no way to countenan 
and yet in no way to resist. Of this society the Churc 
was in one sense a mortal enemy; that is, she did not ac- 
knowledge its right to exist, and she looked forward to 
time when it should be reconstructed on the basis of an 
acknowledgment of Christ and of the law of Humanity. 
On the other hand, it was Christ’s fixed resolution to enter 
into no contest with the civil power. Therefore he en- 
joins upon his followers an absolutely passive behaviour 
towards it, and in every rule that he lays down, while he 
recognises the fact that the Church itself has no power 
of compulsion, he makes no use whatever of that power 
residing in the state. 

It appears, then, that the law we have been considering 
was dictated by special circumstances. It was given to 
men who had practically no country. The paramount 
duty to humanity had for a time suspended their obli- 
gations to the government under which they lived. Or 
rather they were men who, while bearing all the burdens 
laid upon them by the government, declined for special 
reasons all the advantages they might have derived from 
government. It was for a society thus deprived by cir- 
cumstances of all political interests that Christ legislated, 
for a society which was directed to act as good citizens do 
under a usurping but still a settled government,—that 
is, to become political quietists, disturbing as little as 
possible the public tranquillity, but at the same time coun- 
tenancing as little as possible the unrighteous power. 
Accordingly, in laying down a law for the treatment of 
injuries, Christ entirely disregards the political bearings of 
the question. He considers no interests but those of the 
parties immediately concerned. To raise the question 
whether his law of abstinence from prosecution is con- 
sistent with social order is therefore to misunderstand it. 
Owing to special circumstances this element was eliminated 





The Law of Forgiveness 251 


from the problem. Like the First Law of Motion, this 
law postulates the absence of external forces. What it 
affirms is that, supposing a wrong committed in redressing 
which only the injured party is interested, he should en- 
deavour to bring the offender to submission by patience 
if it be an offence of ignorance, by rebuke if he knew better, 
but in no case by force. 

The special circumstances have long passed away, and 
it is now impossible to eliminate from the problem all that 
bears upon public order. Society, and not the injured 
party only, has now to be considered in the treatment of 
an injury. Christ’s law therefore ceases in many cases 
to be serviceable as a rule of life. But if this were so 
in all cases, it would not therefore lose its value. The 
First Law of Motion is still the foundation of mechanics, 
although no body in the universe was ever actually in 
the condition that law supposes. Christ’s law may be 
no longer an invariable law for action, but it is an invari- 
able law for feeling and for motive. Instead of abstain- 
ing from prosecution it may now be a positive duty to 
prosecute, but it must no longer be a pleasure to prosecute. 
The prosecution that duty dictates is externally the same 
act as the prosecution prompted by selfish revenge, but 
essentially it is a totally different act. That this essential 
difference is now clear, and that it is applicable to prac- 
tice, is one abiding effect of Christ’s law. Nor is prose- 
cution inconsistent with kindness. Punishments may 
once more, since the Church became reconciled to the 
State, have become Christian acts and may have their 
use, and discharge in some cases the same functions that 
Christ intended to be discharged by passive tolerance. 
The sense of a rule higher than self-interest may be roused 
sometimes by severity, sometimes by unexpected gentle- 
ness, sometimes by the mixture of both. But though 
the prohibition of severity must now be considered as 
taken off, yet the emphatic recommendation of gentle- 
ness remains. It remains a duty in all cases where such 
a course is likely to succeed to endeavour by every act of 
kindness consistent with duty to the public to point out 
to the rude and heathenish heart “‘ the more excellent 
way of charity.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 
CONCLUSION 


THE outline of Christian morality is now completely 
drawn, and it only remains to take a parting glance at 
the picture from some point where we can see it all in one 
view. 

Let us endeavour, then, once more to answer the ques- 
tion, What is the Christian Church? 

First, it is a commonwealth. In other words, it is a 
society of men who meet together for common objects, 
and it differs from the minor clubs or unions under which 
men avail themselves of the principle of association, and 
resembles those greater societies which we call states, in 
this respect that it claims unlimited self-sacrifice on the 
part of its members, and demands that the interest and 
safety of the whole shall be set by each member above 
his own interest and above all private interests whatever. 

Secondly, as all commonwealths are originally based 
upon some common quality, and for the most part on a 
blood-relationship, real or supposed, of the members, so 
is the Christian Church based upon a blood-relationship, — 
but the most comprehensive of all, the kindred of every 
human being to every other. 

It is therefore absolutely open to all human beings who 
choose to become members of it. 

But the objects for which this commonwealth exists 
are much less obvious and intelligible than those for 
which the local commonwealths of the earth exist. Ac- 
cordingly it is demanded of every member of the Christian 
Commonwealth that he be introduced into it with a pre- 
scribed form and in a public manner, that he be instructed 
in the objects for which it exists, and that he testify his 
membership from time to time by a common meal taken 

252 





: 


Conclusion 253 


in conjunction with other members also according to a 
prescribed form. 

The effect of this system and of the absence of local 
boundaries is that the objects of the Christian common- 
wealth, though less obvious, are far better defined than 
those of other commonwealths, and that it approaches 
far nearer to the theoretical perfection of a state. Other 
states are but accidental aggregates, whose attraction of 
cohesion was originally a clannish instinct or a common 
terror of some near enemy or the external pressure of 
physical barriers; such states, though when once formed 
they may conveniently be used for definite objects, yet 
cannot properly be said to have any definite object at all. 
But the Christian Commonwealth has the same object 
now which it had at the beginning, and what that object 
is it is and always has been easy to discover. 

The Christian has, as such, a definite relation to every 
other human being, to every Christian as a fellow-citizen, 
and to every person who is not Christian as possessing 
that humanity which is the ground of Christianity. 

In ordinary states there arises out of the union, the 
relationships, the intercourse, the common interests of 
the citizens, a sense of duties towards each other and of 
justice. This sense expresses itself in laws, which, at first 
few and but half-just, have a reacting effect upon the 
sense of justice which produced them, developing it and 
causing it gradually to produce more and juster laws. 
By this system of laws the citizens are taught to abstain 
from doing serious injuries to each other, and a spirit of 
sympathy is fostered which disposes them to help each 
other in difficulties. The morality which thus springs 
up does not at the beginning influence the citizens in 
their dealings with foreigners, but is supposed to be in- 
separable from the civic relation. In a time of general 
intercourse between nations the obligations of justice 
become in a certain degree recognised even between 
foreigners, but grudgingly, and active sympathy between 
them scarcely exists at all. 

A similar process goes forward in the Christian Com- 
monwealth, and, as it includes all mankind, the sense of 


254 Ecce Homo 


duty which springs up in it is a sense of duty to man 
man, and whatever kindness it fosters is also not exclu 
sive but truly cosmopolitan or humane. In the Christi 
Commonwealth also the sense of duty gives birth to laws; 
and whatever laws are common to all secular states 
transferred to it, while some new ones are suggested b 
its peculiar conditions. But whereas in other states th 
greatest importance is attached to these laws and t 
greatest trouble taken to make them as just, as numerous, 
and as exact as possible, in the Christian Commonwealth 
a different view is taken. The laws themselves are not 
considered as very important; no pains are bestowed 
upon forming them precisely; and they exist rather as 
tules generally understood in the minds of the citizens 
than as written statutes. On the other hand, that sense 
of obligation in which all laws have their origin is re- 
garded as inexpressibly important. Every expedient is 
used to increase the keenness of this sense to such a point 
that it shall instantly and instinctively suggest the proper 
course of action in any given case. 
This increased and intense moral sensitiveness has an 
effect upon the objective morality of the Christian Com- 
monwealth, and it also gives a peculiar tone to the char- 
acter of individual Christians. Its effect upon objective 
morality is to create a number of new duties which the 
duller moral sense of secular states does not apprehend. 
These new duties, as has been said, are not carefully 
formulated, but they are apprehended very plainly and 
universally recognised. Of these new duties some do 
not differ in kind from these which secular morality pre- 
scribes. They are but new applications of principles 
which under other systems are admitted but applied im- 
perfectly. But besides these a whole class of new duties 
arise in the Christian Commonwealth which are different 
in kind from those acknowledged in secular common- 
wealths. These are positive or active duties—duties, 
that is, not of refraining from injuries but of promoting 
actively the welfare of others. In secular states, though 
men had frequently appeared who had performed these 
duties, they had not performed them as duties but rather 






















Conclusion 255 


: as works of supererogation, and for performing them they 
had received from their fellow-citizens not simple appro- 
bation but such admiration as we bestow on those who 

ilo something extraordinary. These extraordinary ser- 
vices to humanity become ordinary and imperative in 
the Christian Commonwealth. They fall naturally into 

two classes—services to the bodies of men and services 
to their characters and moral development; and to per- 
form either class of duties well, truly to serve men’s 
bodies or their souls, requires the most assiduous study, 
calls for comprehensive knowledge and perpetual earnest 
endeavour. 

But the fact that in the Christian Commonwealth so 
much importance is attached to a strong moral sense, 
the fact that this is used as a substitute for strict laws, 
modifies individual character even more than objective 
morality. As this moral sense is expected to discover 
the right course of action in any given case without the 
help of a law, so, vice versa, it is not considered satis- 
factory that the right act should be done, unless the 
moral sense be active in dictating it. Merely for the pur- 
pose of discovering the right act the moral sense would 
often be unnecessary; in most cases the right act is 
determined for us by the customs of society, or by our 
own previous experience of similar cases. But the rule 
of the Christian Commonwealth is, that though the feel- 
ing be not necessary to discover the right act, yet the act 
must always be accompanied by the feeling. Therefore 
to perform an act of kindness coldly, an act of self-denial 
reluctantly, an act of forgiveness with suppressed ill-will, 
or any right act whatever from interested motives, 
whether to escape punishment or to win applause, or 
mechanically from a habit of following fixed maxims, 
or from any other motive except the moral sense, is to 
break the fundamental law of the Christian Common- 
wealth. The Christian therefore must, it appears, cherish 
a peculiar temperament, such that every combination 
of circumstances involving moral considerations may 
instantaneously affect him in a peculiar way and excite 
peculiar feelings in him. He must not arrive at the nght 


256 Ecce Homo 


practical conclusion after a calculation or a struggle, 
by an instantaneous impulse. Rightly to appreciate wh 
the circumstances are may indeed cost him thought ar 
study, but when once the position is made clear to his 
mind, the moral sense should speak as promptly as the 
note sounds when the string of a musical instrument 
struck. 
This moral sensitiveness, this absolute harmony of ir 
ward desire with outward obligation, was called by Chris! 
and his Apostles by a name of which holiness is the ecog 
nised English equivalent, and it is attributed to tk 
presence of a Divine Spirit within the soul. It is th 
absolute and ultimate test of true membership in the 
Christian Commonwealth. He who has it not cannot be 
a true member whatever he may have, and he who has 
it is a member whatever he may lack. But how is this 
moral sensitiveness produced? It is the effect of a single 
ardent feeling excited in the soul. A single conception 
enthusiastically grasped is found powerful enough te 
destroy the very root of all immorality within the hes 
As every enthusiasm that a man can conceive makes 
certain class of sins impossible to him, and raises him not 
only above the commission of them, but beyond the very 
temptation to commit them, so there exists an enth 
siasm which makes all sin whatever impossible. This 
enthusiasm is emphatically the presence of the Holy 
Spirit. It is called here the Enthusiasm of Humanity 
because it is that respect for human beings which no one 
altogether wants raised to the point of enthusiasm, 
Being a reverence for human beings as such, and not fe 
the good qualities they may exhibit, it embraces the bad 
as well as the good, and as it contemplates human beings 
in their ideal—that is, in what they might be—it desires 
not the apparent, but the real and highest welfare of 
each; lastly, it includes the person himself who feels i 
and, loving self too only in the ideal, differs as much aS 
possible from selfishness, being associated with self- 
respect, humility and independence, as selfishness is 
allied with self- contempt, with arrogance, and with 
vanity. 














































Conclusion 257 


Once more, how is this enthusiasm kindled? All vir- 
tues perpetuate themselves in a manner. When the 
pattern is once given it will be printed in a thousand 
copies. This enthusiasm, then, was shown to men in 
its most consummate form in Jesus Christ. From him 
it flows as from a fountain. How it was kindled in him 
who knows? “The abysmal deeps of personality ” hide 
this secret. It was the will of God to beget no second son 
like him. But since Christ showed it to men, it has been 
found possible for them to imitate it, and every new imi- 
tation, by bringing the marvel visibly before us, revives 
the power of the original. As a matter of fact the En- 
thusiasm is kindled constantly in new hearts, and though 
in few it burns brightly, yet perhaps there are not very 
many in which it altogether goes out. At least the con- 
ception of morality which Christ gave has now become 
the universal one, and no man is thought good who does 
not in some measure satisfy it. 

Living examples are, as a general rule, more potent 
than those of which we read in books. And it is true 
that the sight of very humble degrees of Christian 
humanity in action will do more to kindle the Enthu- 
Slasm, in most cases, than reading the most impressive 
scenes in thelife of Christ. It cannot, therefore, be said that 


ral perfection of man stands revealed in its root and 
unity, the hidden spring made palpably manifest by 


human sorrows will hide themselves, and all human 
-denials support themselves against his cross.—But we 
R 


258 Ecce Homo 




























are travelling into questions which we are not yet in a 
condition to discuss. 

Our subject has hitherto been Christian morality. ? 
have considered the scheme by which Christ united mer 
together, cured them of their natural antipathy, cured 
them of their selfishness. But man has other enemies 
beside himself, and has need of protections and support 
which morality cannot give. He is at enmity with Natur 
as well as with his brother-man. He is beset by two 
enemies with whom he knows not how to cope. The firs 
is Physical Evil; the second is Death. The harm whic 
is done to us by our fellow-men we can at least understand 
We understand either that they are angry with us for 


which involve suffering to us. What we can understa 
we can sometimes guard against, we can generally foresee 
But when the forces of Nature become hostile to us, we 
know neither why it is so nor what to do. Most of these 
enemies attack us capriciously, but one of them is certain 
to attack us sooner or later, and certain to prevail. H 
may not be the worst among them; he may not be 2 
enemy at all; but he is more dreaded than any, becaus 
he is more mysterious. And though we know little o 
Death, we cannot help thinking it a comfortless torpor, 
that deprives the hero of his heroism, the face of its smil 
the eye of its expression, that first strikes the human form 
with a dull, unsocial stiffness, and then peels the beauty 
from it like a rind and exposes the skeleton. In different 
degrees men learn and always have learnt to overcome 
this terror, and to meet death with contentment, and even 
in some cases with joy. But death remains the fatal bar 
to all complete satisfaction, the disturber of all great plans, 
the Nemesis of all great happiness, the standing dire dis- 
couragement of human nature. 

What comfort Christ gave men under these evils, ho’ 
he reconciled them to nature as well as to each other by 
offering to them new views of the Power by which 
world is governed, by his own triumph over death, and by 
his revelation of eternity, will be the subject of ‘anothe 
treatise. 


Conclusion 259 


In closing the subject for the present, let us reflect for 
a moment upon the magnitude of the work which Christ 
accomplished, and the nature of which we have been 
investigating. We may consider it in two very different 
aspects. It was, in the first place, a work of speculation, 
which we may compare with the endeavours of several 
ancient philosophers to picture to themselves a common- 
wealth founded on juster and clearer principles than the 
states they saw around them. Plato made such an 
attempt, and a later philosopher was on the point of 
realising his conception in an actual, palpable, Platono- 
polis. The Kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, which 
Christ founded, was similar to this speculative state. He 
seized upon the substantial principles which lie at the 
foundation of every civil society, and without waiting for 
favourable circumstances or for permission of kings, and 
not only dispensing with but utterly repudiating a local 
habitation, he conceived a commonwealth developed, as 
it were, from within. It was one of those daring imagina- 
tions, in which, as a general rule, we allow philosophers to 
indulge in their studies, not because we imagine for a 
moment that they can ever be realised, but because they 
are useful educational exercises for youth, and because in 
filling up the paper design suggestions may be thrown out 
which a practical man may be able gradually to work into 
the constitution of some existing state. To make any 
more practical use of such schemes almost all the practical 
statesmen that ever lived would at once pronounce im- 
possible. They know better, of course, than all other 
men with how little wisdom the world is governed. They 
regard the whole framework of all institutions as deter- 
mined by the plain, universal, animal, propensities of 
men and the irresistible constraint of external conditions. 
They believe that for the most part nothing can be done 
by the wisdom of individuals but to watch the operation 
of these causes, to take advantage of each passion as it 
rises, and sometimes to procure the adoption of a measure 
which is solidly good, when it happens to be momentarily 
popular. But any comprehensive scheme, appealing to 
first principles and at the same time demanding sacrifices 


260 Ecce Homo 


from men, they consider in the nature of things impractic- 
able. Such, then, was Christ’s scheme regarded as a 
speculation. 

We do not compare Plato’s Republic with the republics 
of Athens or Rome, because, however interesting the 
former may be on paper, it has never been realised. It 
may be very perfect, but Athens and Rome were more; 
they existed. But the speculative commonwealth of 
Christ may be compared to the commonwealths of the 
world as well as to those of philosophers. For, however 
impossible it may seem, this speculation of a common- 
wealth developed from first principles has been realised on 
a grand scale. It stands in history among other states; 
it subsists in the midst of other states, connected with 
them and yet distinct. Though so refined and philosophic 
in its constitution, it has not less vigour than the states 
which are founded on the relations of family, or language, 
or the convenience of self-defence and trade. Not less 
vigour, and certainly far more vitality. It has already 
long outlasted all the states which were existing at the 
time of its foundation; it numbers far more citizens than 
any of the states which it has seen spring up near it. It 
subsists without the help of costly armaments; resting on 
no accidental aid or physical support, but on an inherent 
immortality, it defied the enmity of ancient civilisation, 
the brutality of medizval barbarism, and under the 
present universal empire of public opinion, it is so secure 
that even those parts of it seem indestructible which de- 
serve to die. It has added a new chapter to the science of 
politics; it has passed through almost every change of 
form which a state can know; it has been democratical, 
aristocratical; it has even made some essays towards 
constitutional monarchy; and it has furnished the most 
majestic and scientific tyranny of which history makes 
mention. 

For the New Jerusalem, as we witness it, is no more 
exempt from corruption than was the Old. That early 
Christian poet who saw it descending in incorruptible 
purity “‘ out of heaven from God,” saw, as poets use, an 
deal. He saw that which perhaps for a point of time was 





Conclusion 261 


_ almost realised, that which may be realised again. But 
what we see in ‘history behind us and i in the world about 
us is, it must be confessed, not like ‘“‘ a bride adorned for 
her husband.” We see something that is admirable and 
much that is great and wonderful, but not this splendour 
of maiden purity. The bridal dress is worn out, and 
the orange-flower is faded. First the rottenness of dying 
superstitions, then barbaric manners, then intellectualism 
preferring system and debate to brotherhood, strangling 
Christianity with theories and framing out of it a charla- 
tan’s philosophy which madly strives to stop the progress 
of science—all these corruptions have in the successive 


ages of its long life infected the Church, and many new 


and monstrous perversions of individual character have 
disgraced it. The creed which makes human nature 


richer and larger, makes men at the same time capable of 


profounder sins; admitted into a holier sanctuary, they 
are exposed to the temptation of a greater sacrilege; 
awakened to the sense of new obligations, they sometimes 
lose their simple respect for the old ones; saints that 
have resisted the subtlest temptations sometimes begin 
again, as it were, by yielding without a struggle to the 
coarsest ; hypocrisy has become tenfold more ingenious 
and better supplied with disguises; in short, human 
nature has inevitably developed downwards as w ell as up- 
wards, and if the Christian ages be compared with those of 
heathenism they are found worse as well as better, and it 
is possible to make it a question whether mankind has 
gained on the whole. 

To be sure, the question is a frivolous one. What good 
for the grown man to regret his childhood, and to think 
his intelligence and experience a poor compensation for 
the careless happiness that accompanied his childish ignor- 
ance? It was by Nature’s law that he grew to manhood, 
and if infancy can be happy without wisdom, a foolish 
and superstitious man cannot hope for the same happiness. 
Those who saw “ old Proteus rising from the sea ” may or 
may not have been happier than we are; we, at any rate, 
should be none the happier for seeing him. But the 
triumph of the Christian Church is that it is there—that 





























262 Ecce Homo 


the most daring of all speculative dreams, instead of bei 


when carried into effect, instead of being confined to a few 
select spirits, has spread itself over a vast space of 
earth’s surface, and, when thus diffused instead of givi 
place after an age or two to something more adapted to’ 
a later time, has endured for two thousand years, and, at 
the end of two thousand years, instead of lingering as a 
mere wreck spared by the tolerance of the lovers of the 
past, still displays vigour and a capacity of adjusting itself” 
to new conditions, and lastly, in all the transformations it 
undergoes, remains visibly the same thing and inspired by 
its Founder’s universal and unquenchable spirit. 

It is in this and not in any freedom from abuses that 
the divine power of Christianity appears. Again, it is in 
this, and not in any completeness or all-sufficiency. It is” 
a common mistake of Christians to represent their faith 
as alone valuable and as, by itself, containing all that man 
can want or can desire. But it is only one of many revela- 
tions, and is very insufficient by itself for man’s happiness. 
Some of the men in whom the Christian spirit has been 
strongest have been among the most miserable of the race; 
some nations have imbibed it deeply and have not been 
led by it to happiness and power, but have only been con- 
soled by it in degradation. Happiness wants besides some 
physical conditions, animal health and energy; it wants 
also much prudence, knowledge of physical facts, and 
source. To assist us in arranging the physical conditions 
of our well-being another mighty revelation has been made 
to us, for the most part in these latter ages. We live unde 
the blessed light of science, a light yet far from its meri- 
dian and dispersing every day some noxious superstition, 
some cowardice of the human spirit. These two revela 
tions stand side by side. The points in which they have 
been supposed to come into collision do not belong to our 
present subject; they concern the theology and not the 
morality of the Christian Church. The moral revelation 
which we have been considering has never been supposed 
to jar with science. Both are true and both are essential 
to human happiness. It may be that since the methods 


Conclusion 263 


_ of science were reformed and its steady progress began, 


it has been less exposed to error and perversion than Chris- 
tianity, and, as it is peculiarly the treasure belonging to 


_ the present age, it becomes us to guard it with peculiar 


jealousy, to press its claims, and to treat those who, con- 
tent with Christianity, disregard science as Christ treated 
the enemies of light, “‘ those that took away the keys of 
knowledge,” in his day. Assuredly they are graceless 


_ Zealots who quote Moses against the expounders of a 


wisdom which Moses desired in vain, because it was re- 
served for a far later generation, for these modern men, 
to whom we may with accurate truth apply Christ’s words 


_ and say that the least among them is greater than Moses. 


On the other hand, the Christian morality, if somewhat 
less safe and exempt from perversion than science, is more 
directly and vitally beneficial to mankind. The scientific . 
life is less noble than the Christian; it is better, so to speak, 
to be a citizen in the New Jerusalem than in the New 
Athens; it is better, surely, to find everywhere a brother 
and friend, like the Christian, than, like the philosopher, 
to “ disregard your relative and friend so completely as to 
be ignorant not only how he gets on, but almost whether 
he is a human being or some other sort of creature.” 1 
But the achievement of Christ, in founding by his single 
will and power a structure so durable and so universal, is 
like no other achievement which history records. The 
masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and common 


“in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of specula- 


tion flimsy and insubstantial. When we speak of it the 
commonplaces of admiration fail us altogether. Shall we 
speak of the originality of the design, of the skill dis layed 
in the execution? All such terms are inadequate. Oren 
ality and contriving skill operated indeed, but, as it were, 
implicitly. The creative effort which produced that 
against which, it is said, the gates of hell shall not prevail, 
cannot be analysed. No architects’ designs were furnished 
for the New Jerusalem, no committee drew up rules for 
the Universal Commonwealth. If in the works of Nature 
we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle 
1 Plato, Theaet. p. 80. 












264 Ecce Homo- 


with difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity, then in 
Christ’s work it may be that the same indications occ! 
But these inferior and secondary powers were not con- 
sciously exercised; they were implicitly present in the 
- manifold yet single creative act. The inconceivable work 
was done in calmness; before the eyes of men it was noise 
lessly accomplished, attracting little attention. Who can 
describe that which unites men? Who has entered into 
the formation of speech which is the symbol of their union? 
Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society 
He who can do these things can explain the origin of th 
Christian Church. For others it must be enough to say, 
“the Holy Ghost fell on those that believed.” No man 
saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen 
crowded together, the unfinished walls and unpaved streets 
no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe; it de- 
scended out of heaven from God. 


THe 
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